Last Minute Notes

Of course a bunch of cool items are coming in as I'm trying to leave town! One being that golden eagle that my buddy Mark Martell tagged a golden eagle that was injured (by one of those AWFUL leg hold traps--can we please ban those, I'm okay with hunting, but leg hold traps suck, both for the intended and unintended victims like birds of prey).

Anyway, the golden eagle recovered at The Raptor Center and fitted with a transmitter to see where it breeds.  For awhile there was some concern because he spent quite a bit of time in Wisconsin, but he's on his way now!  Check out his travel map:

This bird has been all over the place!  You don't see it marked on this map, but in early April he went down into Iowa and the spent a week or two in Wisconsin. Then it went up near Duluth, down back into Iowa, back into Minnesota and then into Canada.  Where will this bird end up and where will he breed?  I can't wait to find out!

Speaking of banded birds, I got an update on a banded trumpeter swan that I digiscoped during the winter:

David Hoffman of the Iowa DNR sent me an email today that read, "Red 1H8 is a 2004 hatch year Female from Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago).  Released at Beaver Valley Wetlands 3 NW of Cedar Falls, IA in 2005."

That was cool to learn!

I'm currently trying to load all of the Birdwatch Radios that I've missed so I can listen to them on the plane (apparently, I'm on one of them) regardless, I really enjoy listening to Steve Moore's interviews.

I also learned that the 100th Edition of I and the Bird is about to happen! It's going to be hosted by The Drinking Bird on the Nature Blog Network blog on May 14, 2009!

Mike Bergin, the founder describes I and the Bird as the blog carnival devoted to wild birds and birding. A biweekly showcase of the best bird writing on the web celebrates the interaction of human and avian.

Write a great post then send the link and a brief summary of the post to Mike (mike AT 10000birds DOT com) or Nate (naswick AT gmail DOT com) by May 12. Then, when Nate publishes his historic edition on May 14, visit and link from your blog. It's that easy, and fun to boot.

Hey, if you enjoyed the waxwing post from earlier, check out Minnesota Birdnerd's photos of banding waxwings are Carver Park, it's very sweet. And speaking of banding, I surprised the Friday banding crew at Carpenter Nature Center by showing up for banding the day before I leave for Kazakhstan.  Yes, I should have been packing, but it's spring migration and when I missed this date last year (because of the World Series of Birding), I missed cool stuff like indigo buntings...and I wasn't disappointed today.

I also needed to go because if I think about where I'm going too much, I kind of freak out.  I've read about Kazakhstan and have always wanted to go, so when this opportunity came my way to go with Swarovski to see the work they are doing with BirdLife International for the sociable lapwing (a fancy killdeer), I could not say no.  But odd things hit me (and I'm sure part of it is the great bio I'm reading at the moment called Life List) like, this is the furthest distance I have ever been from Non Birding Bill since I met him in 1994.  I've been out of the country, but not this far out of the country.  It's odd to think that I'll be on the other side of the planet from him.  So, going through my routine keeps me from freaking out with excitement and nervousness.

And I wasn't disappointed with banding today.  We actually got in a male indigo bunting!  This male is still has some brown and has not quite molted into his breeding plumage, but boy is he still a cool looking bird. It's interesting that up here, when these birds first return in the spring, you can see them at bird feeders eating white millet, Nyjer, and sunflower hearts.  However, once the insects are out in full force, they don't visit feeding stations as often. It's always a treat to see one of these birds.

We had so many goldfinches int he nets, that I lost count of how many we banded.  At one point, there was just a big group of them on the table to be processed.  It seems like the males have turned bright yellow overnight.  When I first approached the net to take out the above male goldfinch, I heard a familiar chipping noise.  I looked down to find...

...a common yellowthroat.  I took the yellowthroat, while my more experienced friend Jen took the higher goldfinch.  It was fun to see warbler up close again.

I fun surprise in the net was this Harris sparrow.  Just a few weeks ago I was in Oklahoma watching flock of Harris sparrows (still molting into their breeding plumage), I wondered if this guy came up through Minnesota? After handling warblers and goldfinches, this bird felt really robust in my hand.  And I suddenly realized how big this bird is when Jim Fitzpatrick was at the table banding a rose-breasted grosbeak and it took the same band size as this Harris sparrow!

And speaking of banding grostbeaks, what bander's day is complete without the skin splitting cardinal?  This female was originally banded last year and she's out for revenge.  She nailed me several times, even after I finished reading her band number.  I took her outside, opend my fingers to let her fly away and she gave me one last hard chomp before taking off.  One of the other banders got a great laugh out of it.  Always happy to provide comic relief.

As I was out and about, I noticed that catbirds were back at Carpenter in full force, many were practcing their territory songs.  They were mimicing, but not quite as well as they could have.  I wondered if these were males getting their songs ready to impress the females.  Here's one, and you will also hear the "meow" sound that the birds are famous for:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqtigoZ6NBg[/youtube]

The same catbird flew to another perch and you could clearly see it was banded.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cYOMpgawd4[/youtube]

The bird was singing in an area near the orchard where we have nets set up. They seem to be the most productive in the late summer and early fall--especially when young catbirds are learning to fly.  I wondered if this was a male that hatched last year and is practicing his song to attempt breeding?  Tough to say without actually reading the band.

Okay, I seriously need to get down to packing.

Carolina Wren Foils Lawn Care

Don't forget that there is still time to enter the Birdorable Guest Blogging Contest.  Below are some photos and story that are an example of a fun blog entry.

My sister Robin and her husband Roger who live in Indiana sent me some cute photos from their garage.  Robin wrote,"Three weeks ago Roger went in the shed to get the hand spreader and behold, someone was making a nest."

"The next week, the nest was huge and there were two eggs; the following week an additional two eggs for a total of 4.  They were the size of peanut m & ms."

"Then Roger saw the mama sitting on the nest.  It is a Wren!  How cute she is.  Thought you might like to take a look.  Needless to say, Roger is using the larger spreader this year!  Can't wait to see the babies. "

Thanks, Robin, for sending your sister some great blog material!  I love that last photo--the Carolina wren totally looks like it's saying, "Don't mess with me, buster!"

Never fear, little wren, you are in safe hands.

Singing Pine Siskin

So, I think Mr. Neil has pine siskins nesting around his yard, they've stuck around and have been singing their territory song all spring.  I love how like a house wren, they are a tiny bird with a loud crazy song.  I got video of one singing here (you'll also hear a buttload of goldfinches singing in the background): [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUzTlV1dCWA[/youtube]

Distracting Cedar Waxwings

Tonight is Birds and Beers at Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park--with maybe a little bird banding.  Should be awesome with all the migrants around. Starts at 6pm. Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders of all abilities to mildly interested to hardcore.  It's a way to get together and talk some birds.  Normally, we meet in a pub, but migration is so awesome, we're meeting outside...and Coon Rapids does allow alcohol if you would like to BYOB.

A huge flock of cedar waxwings have descended upon my neighborhood.  It started at dawn yesterday, I sat up in bed and Non Birding Bill asked, "What's wrong?"

"Waxwings," I groggily replied, "they're everywhere, hear them?"

"That sound is a bird?"

And they've been covering the trees and using puddles on the surrounding apartment buildings for birdbaths.  They were using the one that was further away, but I set my scope and camera over towards the pool that's closest to my window (it's the puddle that the Cooper's hawk used a couple of years ago).

And sure enough, just as I was about to hop on my bike for a lunch meeting, all the waxwings finally came down to the puddle in good light.  I decided to be late and get a few shots--look at them, it's like a bunch of tarted up female cardinals.  I took a video and you can hear the waxwings, a robin, my cockatiel, and my fingers typing a text message to my friend telling him that I'm going to be late to our lunch because of the waxwing photo opportunity:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBBcqu1KHhk[/youtube]

I wondered why the waxwings kept avoiding this particular pond and if you noticed in the video, they all took off as if startled by something?  Well, here's the reason why:

This male robin was not happy with anyone using this puddle.  He chased off house sparrows, the waxwings, and other robins.  His nest must be near it.  I'll be curious to see if he tries to chase off that Cooper's hawk if she decides to use it again.

New Bee Package Adventures

Our bee crew with substitutes headed out to our hives to welcome our four new packages of bees. We started with the Wendy hive, above is the Queen Wendy in her cage (with a worker on my thumb).  We we hive the packages, we spray the packages with sugar water, bonk the box so all the workers fall to the bottom, remove the feeder can, spray a bit more, take out the queen cage, make sure she is alive, put her in a pocket, dump the bees in the hive, remove the queen from your pocket, spray her, open her cage and release her into the hive, carefully put in all of the frames, put on the ceiling, put in the sugar water feeder and pollen patty, and close up the hive.

Here's a video of the newly installed Wendy hive checking out all of the new frames to build comb and raise the next generation of workers (I recommend clicking the HQ aka high quality button:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYsckIIWLhQ[/youtube]

After successfully installing the Wendy hive, we moved on to the Juliet hive.

All went well with this hive, but we did notice a wee bit of bonking from these girls as we were pouring them in. Bees are supposed to be fairly docile when you get new packages.  They are in swarm mode--they have been moved from their old home with no comb or brood and they are focused on finding a new home not defending a home.

Hans took a picture of a bee angrily buzzing on his hood and even though it's blurry, you can still see the stinger coming out.  I don't want to start off on the wrong foot with a hive, but I wonder if the pretty pink Juliet hive will not be so friendly as we do our first bee inspections?

Most of the bees that come our bee suits are pretty low key.  These are bees on Merry's suit.  They were more after old honey residue and sugar water on our suits than actually climbing around looking for a place to sting. Although, I think Hans would disagree.  Here's a video of me pouring in the Yvaine hive bees, most go in, but you can hear Hans say, "Stop bonking me." There's also a very angry bee coming up to attack the camera:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UON395ruFwk&feature=channel[/youtube]

When I was pouring the bees into the last hive, we got a tad rushed.  It started out sunny, but then it suddenly clouded over and it started to rain, I wanted to keep our girls dry.  As I rushed, I felt something on my foot--a small clump of bees fell on my shoe. I suddenly regretted my lax attitude about the bees' mood during hiving, bees crawled over my turkey vulture socks and I decided not to walk right away so I wouldn't irritate them into stinging.  They eventually flew off and it was all good.

The bees in all hives were ravenous!  Even though there's a feeder can, they were licking anything with sugar water on it.  Here are two bees frantically licking sugar water that had coated a very dead and very old bee--yuck.  There was even a moment when we were at the Hannah hive, about to release the queen and she pointed to my gloved hand. There was a tight cluster of five bees surrounding another--I gulped hard.  Was this a queen from another hive??  No, it turned out to be just a very sugar coated worker that was getting a good lick down from the other workers.

Whew.  But there was more queen drama to follow.

After successfully installing the previous three queens, I didn't worry too much about the final Hannah queen. I opened her cage and instead of her crawling out onto the frame, she opted to try and fly away--Hans captured the moment.  Because she is heavy and full of eggs, she flew very slow.  I slowly followed with my hands to get her to follow me and then two other workers flew on her and she sank like a stone to the bottom of the hive.  I'm sure the workers were just attracted by her pheromones, but it looked like they were saying, "Oh no you don't  there Bessie, you're stayin'!"

We carefully put the frames back in and closed her up before too much rain got in the hive.

After the hiving, I waited for the rain to pass and then headed into the woods to do some birding.  As the day got later, I headed towards the hives to see what was going on.  I set up my digiscoping equipment so I could watch them from a safe distance.  Almost all of the hives had removed the leaves blocking the entrance (it's supposed to stay there the first day to encourage them to accept the hives.  Bees were coming and going from the entrance.  Watching them, it looked like quite a few workers were flying around and orienting themselves to the new home so they know where home is when they go out to forage.  Some were bees who got lost in the hiving and now have to see if they can get accepted into one of the hives, I'm sure they will work it out.

And so it begins, a fresh bee season.  Here's a video of the Yvaine hive workers milling about the entrance of their new homes:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yko6dEGvgU[/youtube]

Welcome girls.

Challenges Faced During Spring Bee Hiving 2009

I got the call from Lorraine on Tuesday morning...our bees had arrived at the post office. And there were some serious challenges to start our day.  Number one: I couldn't get out the door, emails to deal with and then a radio interview that involved me using the phrase "cloaca will un-engorge."

The other challenge for me was that the migration floodgates had opened and birds were pouring.  Large numbers of rose-breasted grosbeaks covered Mr. Neil's yard and I could hear pine warblers all over the place.  I had to focus on bees, not birds.  It was harder than usual because I'm leaving this weekend for Kazakhstan and that is going to be way cool, but I'll miss the big migration waves while I'm away, so I need to soak up what I can.

Another big challenge was that when I arrived, Lorraine was just not herself.  It was clear that she was not feeling well.  Poor thing appeared to be coming down with a migraine.  She really wanted to help, but her body was screaming, "Go to a dark place.  Rest. Don't play with a boxes containing thousands of confused bees in the bright sun."

Bless her  heart, she tried to put up a brave front, but as I made nectar and pollen patties to feed our newly arrived guests, she realized her health took precedence.  We drove her home and Mr. Neil's groundskeeper Hans and housekeeper Merry offered to pitch in (above). I told Lorraine not to worry, this was just the shipment of our Minnesota Hygienic Bees, chances were good that our order of Russian Bees would arrive while I am away in Kazakhstan and she'll have to hive those without me.

I always assume people are like me when it comes to working with wild creatures--you want to do as much of the experience as possible.  I asked both Merry and Hans if they wanted to do any part of this, especially what I think are the fun parts like dumping the bees into the new hive or releasing the queen. Both said no and sensibly wanted to avoid killing the new queen.  But they were incredibly helpful--Hans (above in a forced pose with one of our new queens) did a majority of the heavy lifting.  He made sure to have all the hives set up before arrival and he took quite a few of the photos and videos of the hiving.

Merry (kneeling above) had the important job of keeping me on task--despite all the warblers and vireos singing overhead.  She held onto the hiving instructions and made sure I did everything in order.  She was like a skillful nurse aiding a surgeon, hand me tools when I needed them and making sure we had all of the equipment when we went to each hive.  It was a good team and we systematically installed each hive without any major snafus.

As I understand it, Non Birding Bill and Mr. Neil went through a book of baby names (and I suspect Mr. Neil's body of work) to come up with names for our hives, rather than naming them after people we know (it's too hard to deliver the news, "Hey, your hive died.").  We started naming the hives after a blog reader suggested it and it's easier to say, "Hannah hive is ready for harvest" as opposed to "yellow hive is ready for harvest."

The first hive names are Hannah, Yvaine, Juliet, and Wendy.  Of course, now that I look at the names, I can picture them from movies and books:  Hannah, will she be all Woody Allen and neurotic?  Yvaine--will she be a cranky fairy?  Juliet--will she be an impetuous teenager, ready for suicide when her love dies?  Wendy--will she pine away for a slightly efiminet flying boy who refuses to grow up?

We'll have to see...

More soon, I need to shower.

Wednesday Wren

So, I'm gathering all of the photos and videos that we took while installing four of our new hives yesterday.  I'm having such a challenge. The bird migration floodgates have opened, I want to watch birds, I want to play with bees, I have to blog, oh and there's that thing about earing a livable wage too... Crap, even as I type this, there is a large flock of cedar waxwings playing in puddles on the apartment building across the ally...in perfect light...

Focus, Sharon, focus. Here is a house wren I captured singing near our beehives yesterday:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDALcwW9PM0[/youtube]

Bee blog soon.

Song Of The Black-billed Cuckoo

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.

Vicarious Beekeeping

This week was a tad frustrating.  We had received a note from our honey bee supplier that bees would ship sometime the week of April 27.  I kept all of my plans soft expect to dash off an hive our packages of new bees.  The calls never came and when fellow Bee Team member Lorraine called our supplier, we were informed that the bees were coming next week.  AAAAARGH! ME WANT TO PLAY WITH BEES NOW!

But birds are always there for me when bees are not.  Friday's bird banding added in some spring migrant excitement.  While I've been reading about friends in the southern US seeing warblers, I've been practically salivating.  Well, we got in a female yellow-rumped warbler in the nets on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center, the spring migration flood gates are about to open!

As we were banding, Al, who is in charge of volunteers enthusiastically complimented my hair.  I just got colored, so initially I figured the compliment was natural, but the tone had a sense of urgency.  Sure enough, he asked if I would be willing to help out with Carpenter's beehives.

I was simultaneously incredibly honored and nervous.

It's a tough economy right now and like many places that rely on grants and donations, Carpenter has had to cut back on staff and ask volunteers to help where we can.  Staff at Carpenter take care of the education animals, maintain the property, give programs, organize events, the list goes on and on. Al is the one who normally takes care of the bees.  Way before I ever had bees or even took a beekeeping class, he let me follow him out to the Carpenter hives, just to get a feel for it.  He's been beekeeping since he was a kid and knows much more than I do.  The fact that he asked if I would check on his hives was a huge honor.

It's one thing for me to make a mistake with our own hives, but to make a mistake or do things differently from the way Al would run his hives made me nervous.  But I wanted to help because Carpenter has an apple orchard and they need their bees.  I suited up and started the smoker and headed out.

Oh! It was so awesome to be back at a hive and actively work it.  It was still fairly cool, and the girls were calm.  Carpenter had a different bee suit than I'm used too and I had some concerns that there might be a breach. We use what I call the space man suit, the hood is attached to the suit and when it's all zipped up, it's hard for an angry worker to get through.  Carpenter has the suit, but the hood is a pith helmet with a net over it.  I could see potential breaches all around my neck as I worked.  But the bees were calm, I took my time and forged ahead.

I looked all through the hive for the queen or even signs of her.  I found some capped brood and a bit of larvae, but no queen and no fresh eggs.  Al told me to do a reversal to make sure his queen was in the top box.  Bees work from the top down.  So, if your queen is in the bottom box of your hive set up, then you just move the box she's in to the top.  The youngest larvae was on the bottom, so I hoped she was there and put the bottom box on top hoped I didn't crush anyone.

I also made her a container of bee nectar and a pollen patty to feed the girls.  They still had some of their winter stores left (above is a worker feeding inside a cell.  I think I spent about an hour with this hive.  Just checking the frames, going super slow to make sure I didn't crush anyone and also savoring time with the bees.  I haven't actively worked a hive since October--six months ago.  They were so calm, so furry.  The girls got a little irritated with the reversal, but nothing too bad.  It was fun to go with the groove of the hive, the contented buzzing was very soothing.

The other hive was much easier to work with and totally friendly. I found fresh eggs and larvae right at the top box in the hive.  I decided not to dig much deeper--the eggs meant the queen was right at the top, why disturb her work and risk crushing her?

This hive looked to have mostly Italian looking bees--with a beautiful gold color, but I periodically found a black bee (a carniolan).  Wonder what kind of drones the queen mated with in this hive?

I love to watch bees feed on sugar that I've made.  It does seem for just a moment, that they are little furry pets, coming up to gently lap the nectar that you have so carefully preparedfor them.

I told Al about not finding the queen in the first hive and reversing it.  He said that he had actually reversed that one a week ago--doh!  Ah well, best laid plans.  Who knows where the queen in that hive is?

He thanked me and said that he'd appreciate any help I could volunteer this summer.  I'm happy to help, Carpenter is my favorite nature center in the Twin Cities and if any of my skills can be of use, I'm happy to offer.

Plus, it will be a chance to learn from a very experience beekeeper.  Al managed to get two hives to survive the winter, I still need to master that.

Well, I hope our bees arrive before I go to Kazakhstan this weekend.  I'd hate to miss the hiving.