Peregrine falcon vs snowy owl. What more do you need to know?
Jays Feeding On Suet
I thought this was a fun contrast of jays feeding at Sax Zim Bog. Here we have the gray jay feeding on the deer rib cage--something that they would feed on naturally in the wild if say a wolf had killed a deer and the cage was exposed to the elements:
And here we have a blue jay feeding on a suet cage with a flavored suet cake--suet that has evolved over the last few decades. It's gone from being just fat from a carcass to a melted down substance with nuts and seeds and who knows what else added to it for flavor.
I love the blue jay bouncing on the thin branch and the cage swings to and fro.
Bird Feeding In Britian Affects Birds
Well, now here is an interesting article from BBC News on how bird feeding id affecting birds over in Europe. The traditional thinking with bird feeding is that birds use feeding stations as a small part of their diet, using various other sources for food. But a study on a European warbler called a blackcap is changing that. Scientists seem to think the bird is in the very early stages of evolving into a new species:
The birds' natural wintering ground is southern Spain, where they feed on the fruits that grow there.
Researchers describe the impact this well-intentioned activity has had on the birds in Current Biology journal.
Dr Martin Schaefer from the University of Freiburg in Germany led the research. He and his team found that blackcaps that migrated to the UK for the winter were in the very earliest stages of forming a new species. He explained that some blackcaps (Sylvia areicapilla) would always have migrated "a little further north" than others and eventually "ended up in Britain in the winter".
"But those birds would have had nothing to eat," he said.
It was when garden bird feeders became more popular in the UK, that an evolutionary division began to emerge.
"As soon as the British provided a lot of bird food, those birds would have had a much higher probability of surviving the winter."
And because the UK is closer to their breeding ground, those birds would also have returned earlier to claim the best territory. The researchers, from Germany and Canada, set out to discover if the birds that spent the winter availing themselves of garden bird-feeders were in fact a distinct group. To do this, they studied the blackcaps at a breeding ground in Germany. The team were able to use a chemical "signature" from the birds' claws to identify where they spent the winter, and what food they ate.
"Then we took blood samples and analysed those to assess whether... we had two distinct populations. And that's exactly what we found," said Dr Schaefer. To a very large extent the birds only mate [with] birds with the same overwintering grounds as them."
This initial "reproductive isolation", Dr Schaefer explained, is the very first step in the evolution of a new species.
"This tells us that by feeding birds in winter we... produce an evolutionary split. And we have produced these initial steps in as little as 50 years."
The team also observed differences in the birds' beaks, wings and plumage. Blackcaps that migrated along the shorter route to the UK had rounder wings, and longer, narrower beaks. The scientists said these differences were evidence that the birds had adapted to their shorter journey, and to eating seeds and fat from bird-feeders, rather than fruit from shrubs and trees. But, Dr Schaefer pointed out that the evolution of a new bird species "could take 100,000 to a million years".
"At this stage this is reversible," he added. "And it's hard to envision a species change, because if there's another economic crisis and people stop feeding the birds, the whole system might just collapse."
In this case, Dr Schaefer thinks the human impact on blackcaps has been a positive thing.
"[The birds have] found a better overwintering area that is closer to the breeding ground, where they can obtain food easily. And I also think its positive news for us, because it means not all the changes we produce are necessarily bad, and that some species have the potential to adapt quickly to the changes."
You can read the full article here.
Which now makes me wonder if more in depth banding and blood samples need to done on North American birds--like goldfinches. Are feeders making a change in some of their winter movements? It's kind of mind blowing if you think of that research on the blackcap. It's one thing to affect a bird species population and seasonal movement, quite another to cause a species split.
This also makes me think of the trumpeter swans in Monticello, MN. As trumpeters were being reintroduced to Minnesota in the mid 1980s, a woman in Monticello, MN was casually feeding ducks and geese from her yard on the Mississippi River every winter. In 1986 a few trumpeter swans joined the group for the winter. The Mississippi water stays open all winter long because of the nearby power plant, giving the swans a safe place to roost at night. Over the years, more and more swans showed up and now it's a tourist attraction to see the 1000 - 2000 trumpeter swans wintering in her neighborhood in Monticello. The woman still feeds the trumpeter swans and puts out over 1400 pounds of corn a day!
That's one woman who has changed a migratory population of birds and added a tourist attraction to her town to boot.
Birding Sax Zim Bog
I really hate car shopping. When we had to go through the process a few weeks ago, I heard through the MN birding grapevine that several northern hawk owls were reported in northern Minnesota, I decided a day up to Sax Zim Bog with my good friend Amber would be my reward. Besides, what better way to get to know our Kia Pet (the named dubbed to our very beige vehicle because it looks like a Chia Pet before the grass grows out) than by taking it on an all day birding trip?
Since daylight is short, Amber and I left the Twin Cities early to arrive at Sax Zim Bog just after sunrise and get some great photography light. Our plan seemed to work. The light was great when we arrived, and dark clouds in the distance only enhanced the bog's colorful landscape.
Alas, the sun was a total tease and soon hid behind clouds that brought light snow. On the upside, I got to really test out the Kia Pet's brakes and refamiliarize myself with driving on snow and a few patches of black ice. Whoopee, I stayed out of the ditches. I do laugh, we've had this vehicle for a couple weeks now and I still drive it like our old sensitive Saturn, like pausing before I press the gas to go in reverse. You had to give the Saturn a minute to think about it or she wouldn't reverse or would jerk violently into it. I forget with this car, I reverse without pause. Ah, the joy of driving a reliable car! But back to birding the bog...
We got a northern hawk owl right away near the corner of 7 & 133 near Meadowlands. If you are interested, there's a google map of where northern hawk owls have been reported which members of the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union add sightings to help those who visit the bog. There appears to be a small irruption of hawk owls this year (perhaps a crash in the vole population on their breeding grounds, pushing quite a few owls south into Minnesota). It's not on the scale of the owl irruption of 2004/2005 but we will never see the likes of that again...or at least not in our lifetime.
This bird put on quite a show for us, as it was actively hunting. It dove down into the grasses, we could see it scurry though and then fly back up. This spot is right next to some railroad tracks and is a road that's used quite a bit in the bog. I'm always fascinated by an owl's ability to hear any prey in a spot like that. I must say, I'm loving the Nikon D40 for digiscoping. This photo turned out way better than it should have considering how low the light conditions were. In the past I've used point and shoot cameras for digiscoping with my Swarovski scope and I would have gotten blogable photo, but nothing this clear on a cloudy day. We ended up seeing a second northern hawk owl as we meandered around the bog, but it was much further away from the road and flew off to parts unknown. I couldn't believe we got our target bird so early.
But the blog is not just about owls, there are so many great birds to find this time of year!
We used the MOU's Sax Zim Bog site maps (particularly the Birding Roads tab) and went looking for birds. Any time we saw a flock of birds land nearby, we pulled over to investigate. We found a small flock of white-winged crossbills working their way through.
We also saw about a dozen rough-legged hawks--each one different (we even saw a couple of dark morph birds). We saw many bald eagles as well but we did note that we did not see any red-tailed hawks, interesting change of buteos. The rough legs are very cagey and hard to get photos of. No matter how far away you park, as soon as the scope is trained on them, they poop (a sure sign they are about to fly)...
This is a different bird than the one perched above--very dark, almost a dark morph. It's cool to see them in so many different color variations. One of the things I love about living in Minnesota is that a day's drive at the right time of year can give you a completely different set of birds. In the Twin Cities, we're loaded with red-tailed hawks. A two and half hour drive north and we're surrounded by rough-legged hawks. Awesome to have a change of pace.
Speaking of a change of pace, Amber and I started following another large flock of birds. When they landed, I rolled down the car windows and was excited to hear the louder and deeper trills of bohemian waxwings.
Here's a closer photo of them. Can you spot the differences between these and a cedar waxwing? If you follow this link, you'll see photos of cedars--they have white butts. The above bohemians have rusty butts. Bohemians also have a red and white patch on their wings. So, cool--a different type of waxwing too! I tried to get a video so you could hear the difference in their calls, but the wind blocks it a bit:
At Xeno Canto, you can also here the difference. This is the sound of cedar waxwings and then this is the bohemian waxwings.
We drove down Admiral Road where a deer carcass is usually hung. In the past this has been a great spot for all sorts of birds. Amber and I found that a deer carcass was already up. Black-capped chickadees and down woodpeckers snuck it for bits of fat and meat.
As did about five gray jays (who kind of look like a balding chickadee on steroids). I showed this video to Non Birding Bill and he said it reminded him of Hannibal Lecter which led to this photo caption. There ended up being about five gray jays who came in for the food source. It was interesting to watch the difference in these jays, the crept in quietly like the snow for the food. I'm so used to blue jays--or even green jays or Steller's jays who noisily announce their presence before coming into a feeding station. These birds swooped in secretively, very unjay-like.
I loved the contrast of the ragged, bloody cage compared to the soft feathery gray of the jay. I took a ton of photos, but the wind picked up at this point and my eyes were watering, I could barely focus my scope.
We also came across several flocks of common redpolls feeding on birch seeds. It was great to see them eating on a natural food source and not a feeder (not that I won't take them at a feeder, but I read they eat birch seeds, I enjoy seeing a bird doing what a researcher tells me they do). We've already had pine siskins show up at Mr. Neil's. I wonder if we'll get redpolls too?
We also stopped at one of the feeding stations open for public viewing at the bog (which was innundated with red-breasted nuthatches). One of the residents has been kind enough to put bird feeders at the end of their driveway and you can park across the street and stand at the end of the driveway and enjoy the birds. In the past, this has been chock full of birds. She came out to greet us and said they had just put the feeders up so the birds were just discovering it. There's normally a little box requesting donations for bird food, she hadn't even had time to put that out yet (so we put a few bucks in her mailbox as a thank you).
All in all it was a GREAT day. We didn't see every bird possible--no boreal chickadee or great gray owl so Amber and I decided that we're going to have to take another day and bird the crap out of the bog.
A Preview
I went out for some much needed birding with a good friend yesterday. As you can see, we were successful in our quest to see a northern hawk owl. This is one of several photos I'm in the process of putting together for the blog.
We stopped a birdfeeding station and I just love this video of a chickadee feeding upside down. Wouldn't that be a fun trick to whip out at parties? Watch me hang upside down by my feet and eat some flavored fat!
Eagles Prove More Torrid Than Average Soap Opera
Forget reading about the whole golfing scandal right now. If you want some sordid and violent love affairs, check out this story from TampaBay.com about a bald eagle threesome gone horrifically violent: "He's everything she's ever wanted in a man: distinguished, a caretaker, a homeowner.
She'll do anything to get him, even if that means taking out his better half. That's exactly what the hussy tried to do Saturday, authorities said Tuesday.
No, this isn't a recap of Fatal Attraction, the famous 1987 movie starring Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. And the characters aren't people. This love triangle is playing out in the trees above a Palm Harbor neighborhood. The parties involved? Bald eagles.
According to officials at the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland — eaglespeak for the hospital — the man-stealing flirt held the other bird down, plucked her feathers and almost killed her. The injured eagle weighed all of 9 pounds.
"Her chest looks like a Thanksgiving turkey — completely bare," said Lynda White, coordinator of the center's EagleWatch program. "She is beat up. She is just a mess."
No one knows if the male eagle was around at the time of the fight, but typically, mates don't come to one another's rescue, she said.
It all happened Saturday afternoon in the back yard of Russ and Becky Fernandes.
"My dog was barking like crazy out back," Russ Fernandes said. "I went out and looked. The eagle was out on the ground."
Bloodied and weak, she stood outside the lanai until he opened the screen door. Then she stumbled inside and into the pool.
Reports of eagle fights increase this time of year. Nesting season, which started Oct. 1, doesn't end until May 15. During that time, the birds jockey for places to live. In Pinellas County, where development has paved over habitats as the eagle population has soared, the problem is even more acute.
"The birds in Pinellas are suffering from loss of habitat," White said. "That's why you have so many eagles there nesting on cell towers. It's crazy compared to the rest of the state. We have seen a steady increase in territory fights as population increases and territory decreases and I think that this is a classic example of that."
The offending eagle is still on the lam and has shown no signs of remorse. Three times since Saturday's nearly fatal fight, she has tried to move into the injured eagle's home, said Barb Walker, a local volunteer with the Audubon of Florida EagleWatch program and one of the first people Fernandes called.
So far, the male eagle has rebuffed the young lady's advances. And now, they're going at it, too. Despite the domestic squabbling, she still wants him.
"She tries to fly to the nest and he won't let her in," Walker said. "He's fighting her off and chasing her out of the natal territory. It's a real drama playing out over there."
Drama seems to follow the injured eagle. Someone shot her in January 1996, fractured her right ulna and punctured her femur. She was so badly injured that the Audubon center kept her for two years while she recuperated and regained her strength. The center released her 6 miles northwest of Brooksville on Feb. 24, 1998."
You can read the full story and see a photo here of the injured female eagle. I have mixed feelings about human aid in this situation. I'll admit that I'd be the first one to run an injured eagle in my backyard to The Raptor Center, however when it comes to territory battles--should humans step in?
It could be argued that Florida has a healthy eagle population and that the birds need to work out territory on their own. We've had some epic peregrine battles over territory here in the Twin Cites. One notable one happened at the Colonnade Building and lasted for two and a half hours as two females fought over a male, nest and eggs. No one stepped in, even when The Raptor Center was called, researchers stepped back and watched the birds duke it out--to the death as they would out in the middle of nowhere. Only one ultimately survived that battle.
As I said, I'm torn, I'm not going to leave an injured eagle alone in my yard, but you do wonder about the life of this bird and how much of it is spent in captivity recovering from injuries.
Aerial Waterfowl Survey Identification 2
Now let's talk about some of the more challenging ducks on our aerial waterfowl surveys! Are you ready for some hardcore duck id fun! Sure you are!
I placed this photo in my last blog entry about aerial waterfowl identification and asked if anyone could identify them and somebody did! Believe it or not, these are some of the easier birds to id. Above we have American wigeon and gadwall. The birds with the red arrow are the wigeon. If you look at their wings, you see a dark patch and a white patch right above it. The other birds are gadwall, which have just the small white patch and that dark spot on their tails. I've bee surprised at the amount of gadwall I've seen on our surveys and I suspect that when I have seen ducks fly in these area and I've been watching from the ground, I assumed mallard. Now, I'm going to have to give them a second look. I always feel a sense of relief when I see the white patch of the gadwall or the black and white patch of the wigeon. I know what I'm looking at.
Here are mallards in flight for comparison. They do not have the small square white patch that you see on the gadwall. It's still tough, but since mallards are the more common ducks you see, you get the hang of them fairly quickly, then you just have to figure out how many you see. How many do you think you see in the above photo? Now count them and see how close you got.
Now here is a fun group! This photo was taken on Lake Pepin on a cloudy day. I prefer going out on cloudy day. When the sun is out, especially when it's low, the glare can make identification really tough. But cloudy days, you can focus on the patterns of white on the ducks and you're good to go. Can you pick out any ducks before going below? One of them was a surprise for me.
I know, you're looking at these arrows and you're freaking out, but let's take it one at a time.
If you haven't noticed already, take a good look at the bird with the red arrow, especially the face. Can you make out a white spot? That is a goldeneye. Believe it or not, that tiny white patch is very identifiable from the plane. When we first started, I was focusing on wing pattern and had a tough time telling them from the common mergansers, but the pilot told me to watch the face when a saw the black and white wing pattern. If it's a goldeneye, you will easily see that white patch. So, the red arrow is the common goldeneye.
Now, the blue arrow is pointing to common mergansers. The merganser on the left is male, the one on the right is female. The male merganser and the goldeneye look similar, but you cannot see the white cheek patch. These birds also have a tendency to fly low, right over the water when our plane passes over, they form a long line right above the water which also helps give you a clue when you are approaching them from a great distance and aren't sure what birds you are about to approach.
Now the white arrows get interesting. On our surveys, we are only supposed to document scaup, we don't have to differentiate between greater scaup and lesser scaup which is great, it's hard enough on the ground, I can't imagine doing it 120 feet above them going 100 mph. It's presumed on Lake Pepin that they are all less scaup but it's not out of the realm of possibility for one or two greaters to be mixed in. Here are illustrations from David Sibley's Guide on greater scaup vs lesser scaup:
Notice how the white on the wing of the greater scaup extends longer on the wing than the lesser scaup. Now, if you go back up to the photo to the birds with the white arrows, those are scaup. But here's another enlargement of those scaup:
The birds with the white arrows are lesser scaup, the white doesn't go that far. But look at the bird with the blue arrow. It's darker, which makes it female, but the white appears to extend all the way to the end. Also, if you look at it compared to the closest lesser scaup, it appears bigger. Greaters are supposed to be bigger than greaters--could this be greater? For my survey, I only need to say, "scaup" but it does make me wonder how many greaters might be mixed in.
OpenSky Update
I was going to post a second part to my waterfowl surveys but found my inbox chock full of emails. Apparently, my coupon code for OpenSky was a bit more popular than expected. Many shopkeepers were given a code to offer their readers and the surge in traffic with that, combined with the coupon code getting picked up by coupon sites led to the crash. Because so many orders came in, they suspended my coupon code.
The founder of OpenSky realized that this would not set well with me and my readers, after all, I promised you guys a deal and I don't love spamming my site and I don't want to tell you "Hey, gang, do this and then not have it available. So, they said that they will do what it takes to make this right. If you tried to place an order and the code got rejected, contact me at sharon at birdchick dot com about what you tried to order and we will get this worked out.
Sorry about that guys. I do think this is a legit company and once they get their kinks worked out, this will be a great way to help maintain blog cost and more importantly give money to much need bird programs for the American Birding Association.
Thanks for your patience.
Maybe Verdins Know What's Up With Bees
Check out this photo of a verdin watching a honeybee...then check out this photo--perhaps verdins are behind Colony Collapse Disorder?
The photographer listed as nnitzky on Flickr wrote, "While waiting for hummingbirds to arrive at my feeder, this little verdin (Auriparus flaviceps) landed on my honeysuckle bush. I took a series of images of it as this bee flew right at it. The bird lunged forward to try to grab the bee, but the bee made a quick evasive maneuver and escaped unharmed."
Cool photos, nnitzky!
Aerial Survey Waterfowl Idenification Part 1
Doing aerial waterfowl surveys is hard work. It's a lot like shorebird identification, you can't just rely on colors, it's more general size, shape and impression--that's right giss birding! I'm told that the hard part for many on these surveys is not getting motion sick in the plane. I can't imagine being motion sick and trying to id and count large amounts of birds literally on the fly. Ick. Fortunately, for me as long as I'm not chugging martinis the night before and if I keep some snacks handy, nausea avoids me. When I first learned that I would be doing these surveys, I was given six hand illustrations of ducks to study and I searched Google Images to find photos of ducks taken from aerial surveys to make flash cards...there aren't too many images like that out there. My hope is that someone who gets to do this in the future, finds this blog entry and has some chance of learning what to watch for the first time they go up. The truth is, nothing really trains you like having an experienced eye with you the first few times you fly to help you learn your birds.
Some birds will be easy to identify on an aerial survey--American white pelicans are huge, fly slowly and are quite distinctive.
And some ducks are easier to identify than others. Can you pick out the three species of waterfowl above?
The ones with the prominent white back are canvasbacks. The white arrow points to a bird with a prominent white stripe on its head--that's an American wigeon and then up in the corner is a distinct black and white bird with a bold white patch on the head--that's a bufflehead.
Here's another group that is fairly easy to figure out. Can you name the tree waterfowl species above? The white birds are tundra swans, the medium sized brown birds are Canada geese, and the smallest birds are mallards. You can't see it in the above photo, but the male mallard's green head was easily visible when we were flying this low. Some would ask how we knew these were tundra swans and not trumpeter. The short answer is we don't, but the longer answer is that these swans were in an area that is known to host thousands of tundra swans in November as they stage and feed before flying out to Chesapeake Bay for the winter. Chances are that a handful of trumpeters could be mixed in, but our survey is primarily about general fall usage. There have been a few points along the survey when we've been closer to the Twin Cities, flying over small family groups of swans that I wondered if we were passing trumpeters and I make sure to note that when I turn in my survey sheets. Now that we have such a large population of trumpeters and they stick around in the winter, it's a challenge to tell trumpeters apart from tundras when flying over them in a plane.
Basic waterfowl id isn't the only challenge. Can you see what's wrong in the above photo? Take a look. Here's the answer:
You have to watch closely to make sure that the waterfowl you see are live waterfowl and not a hunter's decoys. The motorized decoys are easy to spot because you start counting and then immediately ask yourself--why is that duck hovering like a hummingbird?
So, these are some of the basic of birds. I'll leave you with a photo that I'll id later. Can you tell what ducks are in the photo below?
