Are these the same species or different species? What species do you think they are?
Harris Hawk Goes For Cockatoo
Now here is a dramatic video! As a bird handler, you have a tremendous responsibility of keeping the bird safe while you are working with the public. If all goes well, it's a great educational tool. If all does not go well...it can be a disaster for the birds and for the audience. Here is a video from a live bird show at the Los Angeles Zoo which incorporates both birds of prey and, well prey. This is a nighmare situation where the bird handler's quick thinking saved the life of a cockatoo: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikDpYwDKQ_A[/youtube]
I watched that with both fascination and horror. On the one hand, to see how quickly the Harris hawk dives in is cool, but as a bird handler, that is an intense situation. I wish I could see a copy of the video without the dramatic special editing. But, here is what I see and here is why that handler is a pro and was able to save the cockatoo.
She works with that cockatoo enough, that she knows when the bird is nervous and that something else has its attention. Typically, when I work with birds of prey, when they look up, there's a raptor--sometimes just a pepper speck to my eyes. That trainer, noticed that the cockatoo looked up and exhibited fear, she was smart enough to look up and realize that their other program bird, a Harris hawk wasn't far overhead.
As soon as the hawk dove, she blocks the cockatoo by covering it with her body--I can't imagine the amount of pain and to have it done in front of a crowd. If you get a glimpse at her face, you can tell that it hurt. Besides, the grasping talons of the Harris hawk, I wonder of the cockatoo bit her to either get balance or out of fear? Owie, owie, owie! I'm not sure which would be worse, I can't imagine both at the same time.
I found the full video on Animal Planet's website and they interview Lauren, than handler in the video. Interesting, despite the sensationalized editing. Again, her quick thinking and knowledge of her birds' behavior kept that live show from becoming an unfortunate bloody lesson on animal behavior.
It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Blackpoll warbler chips outside my bathroom window. I look through the screen. It chips and flies away as if to say, "You just got served!" I did? I got served. Holy crap, is it on? According to Mike McDowell's blog, it's on. Fall migration has totally hit and from looking online, some of the hottest action is at Hawk Ridge. Check out this photo of a peregrine falcon eating a sharp-shinned hawk on the wing. Yeah, migration is on!
Yesterday, I was supposed to lead a bird walk at Coon Rapids Dam. No one showed, so I took it as an opportunity to "rove." We rangers will sometimes just walk around in different parts of our park and be there to chat with people. Walking around with my uniform, spotting scope and camera, I'm basically a walking sign, "Come and talk to me!" People do.
I didn't get very far because I found a spot right on the bank of the low Mississippi River that was just chock full of birds. This cedar waxwing was surrounded by palm warblers, one Cape May warbler, yellow-rumped warblers, hundreds of robins, one Philadelphia vireo and a red-eyed vireo. Behind me were gulls, herons and egrets so it was a great spot to point out birds.
I got this shot of a great egret and when I downloaded it noticed that there was also a drake mallard in the shot too--the drake is coming out of his eclipse plumage. His head is almost all green with that patch of brown. Ducks must be so relieved to be finished with their molt in the fall. I can't imagine what it must feel like to have thousands of pin feathers coming in at once.
I met a new birder Paul who was also taking photos. He said that he was relatively new to birding, but it's been awhile since I've met someone excited about geese. He took photos of them every chance he got--which is great. I think many birders overlook the "common" birds and he was focused on getting the best flight shots of them possible. He inspired me to take a few shots, I like getting photos of them squabbling.
The big treat for me were the sparrows. Check out Mr. Mutton Chops above--I love song sparrows, when you catch them in just the right angle, they have such a great pattern on their heads. Song sparrows are fun this time of year, they are in fresh plumage, the tee up nicely for photos and I LOVE listening to young song sparrows in a bush practicing their songs for next spring. They don't quite have it down and the sing over and over sound like sort of song sparrows.
I saw a group of four song sparrows as I was leaving. After I got a few shots, I continued the walk back to my car. I noticed something scurry like a mouse across the trail. Only it wasn't mouse shaped, it was bird shaped. "Lincoln's sparrow," I thought to myself. I set my scope up to where it had scrambled into the grasses and waited, knowing it would pop out again.
And it did. I love me some brown birds and a Lincoln's sparrow is always a great during migration. It has streaks like a song sparrow, although not as thick. They can even have a central breast spot like a song sparrow, but they don't quite have the mutton chops that the song sparrows have. Ah, what a great sparrow to find.
As I went up the trail to the parking lot, I apparently startled a tree. In fairness, it was dozing on the job so kind of had it coming.
Mind Games With A Crow
This is not the best photo, but these crows were just outside my kitchen window trying to pick some plastic flap off of the telephone wires. These must be young crows trying to figure out what is edible. I wonder what gave them the idea that this orange tag might lead to food?
I crouched behind a chair with a jacket over the back and using that as sort of a blind. As my D40 camera was clicking. One crow looked up and in my direction. I hid behind the chair without taking photos and after about 20 seconds, leaned to the side. The crow was craning its neck trying to figure out what was there. I started to make young crow calls, then it flew right at my window.
Normally, the crows in my neighborhood are very cagey and never land anywhere near a window, so I wonder if this is a young of the year learning the ropes. He eventually flew off, but it will be interesting to see if this curiosity is a boon or a bust for his winter survival.
Woodpeckers, Suet and Suet Sandwich Feeder
I mentioned earlier that I'm partnering with OpenSky. It's an online store with birding products that I like. Part of my end of the deal is to make blog entries and videos of the product I like. Non Birding Bill and I see this as an opportunity to create some short fun birding videos. Below is one on woodpeckers and suet filmed in Mr. Neil's backyard. It's about four minutes long, safe for work and has a great photo of a woodpecker tongue. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJMZf472jmo[/youtube]
If you are interested in this feeder, you can purchase it here. It really does work well to keep raccoons out and I've had great success chaining to to tree branches (with a lock) to keep raccoons from running off with the feeder and it's fatty booty in the middle of the night.
Alvaro Jaramillo Counting Snipe Retrices
Thanks for all the guesses in the blog and on Twitter. DC Birding Blog guessed correctly when he wrote Wilson's snipe. I love that tail, it looks like a mini red-tailed hawk tail. Tai brings up a good point, note how small the feathers are in relation to the fingers--they are small birds.
Here is a video of Alvaro Jaramillo counting the snipe's tail feathers (you'll hear me call it a common snipe, I'm still stuck on it's old name, it is a Wilson's snipe). You may remember Alvaro from a video earlier this year on learning to love gull watching. Funny guy and would keep you laughing on one of his tours with Field Guides:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z8m4VpvRTs[/youtube]
In the background you might notice Mike Bergin taking photos off to the left, and the dude with the budding fro is Hugo who was one of my guides in Guatemala.
Guess The Tail
Any idea what bird species has this particular tail?
Random Trumpeter Swan
Oh man am I missing hawk banding this fall! I just felt a pang on Saturday and now after reading my buddy Amber's blog about a very cool peregrine recapture, I'm ready to sit in a dark box nestled on the edge of the northern woods facing a fallow farm field and Lake Superior and seeing my hawking buddies. Last night as Non Birding Bill and I were headed out to dinner to re-establish our pair bond (a tradition for when either of us comes home from a trip out of town), we passed the Buzza Building on Lake Street in Uptown and noticed a peregrine perched on top--raptor migration is hot and heavy!
I'm still sorting through all of my shorebird photos from the Midwest Birding Symposium and also have quite a few trumpeter swan photos. Which reminds me, I start a project next week for work that both excites and terrifies me. I'm going to count waterfowl along the upper Mississippi River this fall...from a small plane swooping overhead. I have issues with flying (yeah, I know, I fly a lot). On big planes, I fall right to sleep during take off, now matter how much coffee or espresso I have before I board. Once the plane is airborne, I'm fine. I'm even fine during landing, it's take off that seems to do it...and helicopters where the front windshield is a bubble and when you look down at your feet, you see the ground far below you.
I think I'm going to be fine in this small plane. I think my issues with big planes is a feeling of a lack of control and not being able to watch the pilot's actions to make sure I know what they are up to. But I have never been one to let fear block a cool opportunity. So, I will count ducks and hopefully conquer my fear of flying this fall as I count ducks on Mondays.
And, can I say a big thank you to eBird for the articles here and here on tips for counting large flocks of birds. It's been very handy, as have my flash cards of duck backs.
Holy Crap, Heron vs Big Ass Fish
Zeiss rep Steven Ingraham posted this video he got with his scope and video camera combo of a great blue heron working a great big fish: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m4PWn8yFO8[/youtube]
Midwest Birding Symposium Highlights
I'm just back from the 2009 Midwest Birding Symposium and this was the most insanely busy birding event I have ever been to. There was so much going on and so many people, my only complaint was that I didn't have the time to have an actual conversation with many people from people I want to meet to old friends I rarely see in person.
The symposium was held in a gated/resort community in northern Ohio, right on Lake Erie (and had a large feral cat population). It's a small "dry" town with cute houses fitted close together owned by wealthy people--I learned that the cottage I was in is owned by the Windex family so I was blessed with bright shiny windows. But you could walk/bike all over and it was interesting to walk from the cottage I was staying in to the speaker and vendor areas and pass birder after birder--many well known ones. "Oh, hey, there's Kenn Kaufman. And over there is Scott Weidensaul and over there is Sibley." The small community had totally turned into Birderville: population 1000. I have to say, that Minnesota birder and one of the best speakers on the bird festival circuit, Al Batt, brought down the house with his keynote. All the speakers were great, but Al as usual stood out and left people sore with laughter the next day--way to represent the Minnesota team, Al! Speaking of speakers, Jim McCormac has a blog post up and if you scroll down, you can watch a video of Kenn Kaufman behaving like a horny mourning dove (so much for Lakeside being a dry community).
I didn't take the above photo of ring-billed gulls. I lovely woman I met named Marilyn took it with my digiscoping set up. Part of my duties at the symposium was helping out at the Swarovski booth and help people with digiscoping. Even in early morning with low light, she was able to get a great shot with my HD 80 scope, Nikon D40 and DCA digital adaptor. I did enjoy working one on one with people to help them hone their technique...and explaining how to use Twitter.
The event was more about information and workshops than it was about birding but there was quite a bit going on. The bird of the festival was a Kirtland's warbler that was spotted five minutes from the event and many were able to go out and get photos of this accommodating life bird. Here's one over at 10,000 Birds. I went to look for it late in the day on Friday and had to chuckle at all the birder litter guiding folks to the spot where it could be seen. I did not see it, but I wasn't trying all that hard either (as can be seen in this blog entry over at Born Again Bird Watcher. Although, while a I was laying on the ground avoiding warbler neck, a Cooper's hawk flew low over the group and I had the best view. I joked that it appeared to have a warbler shaped crop and that was the reason we weren't seeing it. I left early, I think a Kirtland's is one of those rare birds that I know I'll see one day, I'd like to make it to Michigan. I actually spent more time watching shorebirds at the symposium--more on that later.
I had a total geek out moment. I was included in the book signing area for City Birds/Country Birds and it was an honor to be surrounded by the likes of Julie Zickefoose and Scott Weidensaul (above), but the real excitement for me was getting to sit next to Lang Elliot! He's written several great books, but many people out there know his voice. If you have any birding cds, chances are good that you have heard his classic, subdued voice narrating the species' names. I listened to these eight hours a day, five days a week when I worked at the bird store (eight years). I have to say, he may sound scientific and stuffy based on the narration, but he's hilarious. I told him that I had heard his voice so long saying bird names, I had always wanted to hear him swear. So, he swore at me. Loved it! Love meeting these hardcore dedicated scientific types and learning that they've got a little freak flag in there and they're not afraid to wave it.
Congratulations to Bird Watcher's Digest and all of their hard working staff who made the event so well attended and so action-packed with great content!