Seen Any Rusty Blackbirds?

Today is Birds and Beers at Joe's Garage--hopefully we'll see some hot crow action coming to the roost (if it hasn't shifted too far west) but at the very least, it's a great place with great food and beverages to meet other people interested in birds.

In the meantime, if anyone sees any rusty blackbirds between now and February 15 they need to be reported! It's the Second Annual Rusty Blackbird Blitz led by  the eBirdprogram led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and theNational Audubon Society with additional coordinated by the International Rusty Blackbird Technical Working Group at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

The population of North American Rusty Blackbirds has plummeted an estimated 85 to 99 percent over the past 40 years. Although the exact cause for this decline is not clear, loss of habitat is one likely reason. Data gathered during the blitz will be used to create a map of wintering Rusty Blackbird "hot spots" and will help focus research, monitoring, and conservation efforts.

"We're looking for date, location, the time you began each survey, how long you were birding, and how far you traveled," said eBird co-leader Brian Sullivan. "It's important to submit your observations even if you don't see any Rusty Blackbirds. Negative data are incredibly valuable and still tell us a lot."

The focus of the blitz is on states that are known to be part of the Rusty Blackbird's winter range in bottomland wooded-wetlands, primarily in American midwestern and southeastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana (yo, Mom, that's you--how about you, Aunt Lynne, and Aunt Lorelei go looking for some), Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas (east), Virginia, and West Virginia.

So, what does a rusty blackbird look like in winter? Like this:

If you go to the Rusty Blackbird eBird page (that's where the above photo came from) they give information on how to collect the info, photos of rusty habitat, and various photos of what rusty blackbirds look like so you can learn how to tell them apart from grackles and Brewer's blackbirds.

My New Favorite Bird Shirt

I may have to change my blog's tagline to this:

I just ordered this shirt at Magnificent Frigatebird today (they make my favorite birding shirts). I don't think it will be here in time for Panama, but there are plenty of other places to wear it.

Eagle Release At Carpenter Nature Center Saturday

If I did not have to do Government on Display for the National Park Service on Saturday, I'd so be going to this. What a great way to spend a winter day!

In early August on a long stretch of County Highway T near Wascott, Wisconsin, motorcyclist Brian Baladez passed a bald eagle on the side of the road. Realizing the bird was injured, Baladez wrapped it in his leather jacket, strapped it to the back of his Harley Davidson motorcycle and transported it to the Duluth Zoo to find help. One vet and police car ride later, Brian and eagle were referred to the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center in St. Paul, one of the most renowned centers for raptor medicine and surgery.

At The Raptor Center, Dr. Irene Bueno-Padilla, a Veterinary Intern from Spain, lead the case diagnosing the eagle with a fractured ulna (wing) and lead poisoning. The lead poisoning is most likely the result of consuming prey shot with lead bullets. In addition, readers of the Duluth News Tribune named him "Harley" in reference to his unorthodox rescue vehicle after his story was published. To repair his broken wing, Harley underwent surgery performed by Dr. Julia Ponder. Harley's flight rehabilitation was delayed due to intense molting of his flight feathers. According to Dr. Ponder, this is a common problem associated with wing injuries.

With the help of numerous volunteers, Harley took flight in mid-December and has been exercised regularly since then. Now that The Raptor Center staff is confident that Harley will be able to survive on his own in the wild, he will be released at Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center near Hastings. From there, it is likely that Harley will go north to find a mate. Wherever he goes, Harley can now take to the skies and fly free.

Come to Carpenter Nature Center at noon on Saturday, January 30th to watch Harley be released!

This Time Next Week Is Canopy Tower In Panama

I drove Non Birding Bill into work this morning because I couldn't stand the thought of him standing at his usual bus stop in -1. Afterwards, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some ingredients of a ratatouille to remind me of summer and impulse bought a "Watch 'Em Grow" purple hyacinth. I glared at the sunbow in the sky and thought, this time next week--I'll be in Panama--specifically Canopy Tower.

I'm currently in the process of finishing up articles and obligations before I go. One of them being Government on Display at the Mall of America answering your park ranger questions from 10am - 4pm this Saturday--stop by and say hello if you are there.

I did not take the following photos, they were sent to tantalize me by the guides at the Tower:

I'm distracted by how many cameras I can take with me--wth birds like this golden hooded tanager (Photo by Cedrick NG) on the line--I have to get as many photos as possible. My digiscoping set up is coming for sure, but I think this time I will also bring along my WingScapes Camera and I picked up another live streaming video camera that I might add in. The tower has bird feeders so it'd be fun to get some crazy exotic birds with it. I'm not sure, I'll have to see how it all fits. I generally do not put cameras and scope in my checked luggage--I carry it, I know where it is and it won't disappear through any mysterious baggage checks.. But there are only so many optics and cameras I can squeeze into my backpack.

I'm also looking forward to some crazy hummingbird action while I'm there--like this rufous-crested coquette (photo by David Tipling). So, are there any birds you would like me to try and document? They are all going to be good for me--especially since digiscoping birds in Central American trees is a challenge but if there's a bird you've heard about in Panama and you want to give me a mission--I'll sure try.

It's not limited to just birds--primates are a possibility as is a sloth--my head will implode if I get to digiscope a sloth. I can hear NBB in my head, "What kind of a challenge is a sloth--they move kinda slow," but who cares, it's an iconic animal to me.

Yes, I Have Seen The Story About The Burned Hawk

There's an unbelievable story from Chicago Breaking News about a that was badly burned as the result of a plane crash near the Aurora Airport. This was not a case of the hawk flying into the plane, this was the result of the hawk being at the wrong roost at the wrong time. There's kind of a nasty photo of the bird on the news page and the feathers sustained so much damage that the hawk is unidentifiable by wildlife rehabbers. The bird's head shape and location make me think it's a red-tailed hawk.

The rehabbers seem to think that the worst burns are around the eyes and that it is quite possible that this bird could make a full recovery and be released. We'll see.

A hawk flying into power lines and catching fire was the inspiration for the philanthropic wine label Burning Hawk, I wonder if they have seen this story yet?

Great Backyard Bird Count

Want to be part of a cool project and monitor birds this winter? February is approaching and that means it's time for the Great Backyard Bird Count. The event happens from February 12 - 15, 2010 and all you need to do is the birds you see in your yard on one or more of the days during Feb 12 - 15. You count can be as short as fifteen minutes or as long as 24 hours--it's up to you. To make sure you are not counting the same bird again and again, you wouldn't count every cardinal you see. You'd count the most number of cardinals that you see at one time. So, if watched for three hours and you saw 10 cardinals in a flock all at once and then 45 minutes later you saw 4 more, you wouldn't say you saw 14, you'd say that you saw 10.

There's a very helpful video here and written instructions here. It's super simple and gives us some great data on wintering populations of birds--who knows, maybe you have a weird bird in your yard and it needs to be documented? Now, I'm going to be in Panama during the count--I've asked Cornell if I can count it, they are doubtful but they think I should do it anyway just for the bragging rights.

Now, there is also a photo contest for this too. You should enter that as well for some fun prizes. My favorite photo from last year didn't get first place, but you could tell that this woman had some crazy hungry redpolls coming to her feeders.

Follow Up On Banded Trumpeter Swan

First A couple of announcements: I'll be on Showcase Minnesota this morning sometime between 10am - 11am answering your bird questions.

And the next Birds and Beers is scheduled for this Sunday at 4pm at Joe's Garage to try and watch the winter crow roost. Now, the crows have shifted the roost a little bit to the west but we'll still have some crow action.

I got a certificate yesterday from the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center regarding the history of the above trumpeter swan with the neck collar 2M7 at Point Douglas:

This is a male trumpeter swan hatched in 2006 in Ruthven, Iowa by Mr. Guy Zenner.

Still no word on the Canada goose with the tight band, I'll be curious to see if I hear about the origin of that goose.

Ivory-bill Again

And so the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has a new sighting. The Birder's World Twitter feed just broke the news with this press release that a Daniel Rainsong claims to have gotten a photo in the Southern Sabine River Basin in Texas. Many birders are ignoring it until the photos are actually released. The photos "are being sequestered to protect Mr. Rainsong's right of claim in this discovery. After Mr. Rainsong's rights in this discovery have been established and protected, the photographs will then be released to the public."

So it seems suspicious to have a press release before you can release the photo, does it not? It also seems suspicious that if you google the name Daniel Rainsong, you get quite a few gambling references.

Perhaps we have another Fish Crow all over again?

Watching Hummers With Penn Jillette

There are more people interested in casual birding than we realize and you never know who that is. So, last fall I went to Las Vegas with Non Birding Bill, Clay Taylor and WildBird on the Fly to film some digiscoping videos, I think I had my biggest geek out ever--bigger than the time I met Scott Weidensaul. I was a tad inebriated at a bar during an ABA convention and Scott suddenly walked in and all I remember is thinking to myself, "Act sober. Act sober. Act sober."

I must not have been too bad because Scott still welcomes me with a hug when he sees me, rather than darting away in the opposite direction.

But due to some lucky scheduling and total generosity of Penn Jillette, we got to see the Penn and Teller Las Vegas show , hang out backstage (that's Amy and me with Teller), and watch birds at Penn's house--I got a lifer in his yard, a black-throated sparrow.

It was the most surreal moment of my life back stage. For one thing, it was the first time NBB has met some of my closest birding buddies. For another, how weird was it to be back stage with a bunch of magicians, the editor of WildBird Magazine and Swarvoski Optik--and we ended up talking about bees! Penn and Teller told us about a segment where they made thousands of bees appear on stage, you can watch it here (see if you can tell when they get stung).

I said, "Holy crap! How did you do that," meaning how did they work with bees, but they told me how they did it, how the entomologist they consulted backed out because he got freaked out and how many stings they ended up with and how Penn had a rather unusual injury on a rather sensitive area of his anatomy--I'll let you google that one, it's easy enough to find or better yet, if you meet Penn, he will gladly tell you the story much better than I ever could.

Again, Penn had a lot going on that weekend, he was flown to another state to shoots a scene for a movie, had his own Vegas show and still managed to give us some time to talk hummingbirds (I got to make hummingbird nectar in his kitchen). Since we were dealing with brief time and when working with video things like cicadas and air traffic can get in the way it's not perfect, but it's still someone I think is cool showing an interest in birds.

I've also hesitated posting this because I was geeking hardcore on the inside during this segment and tried very hard to keep my geek in check. I think from now on, I'm going to have to just let my geek flag fly because trying to play it cool makes me look like a dork.

So here it is and thank you to Swarovski for making this possible and to Birdorable for making the perfect shirt to wear in Vegas and especially to Penn Jillette and his people for being so nice, so gracious with their time and allowing us a few moments to chat about birds.

You can do some awesome birding in Las Vegas. We still have one more video to go, but here's a link to some of our adventures. Between this, testing Swarovski awesome new digiscoping adaptor in Kazakhstan, and climbing a volcano in Guatemala to see a giant tree chicken I can safely say that 2009 was hands down the craziest (in a good way) year of my life.

Birds Bathing In Puddles

First, if you are in dire need of spring/cute/amazing, there's a live video cam on an Allen's hummingbird nest. The chicks have both just hatched so should be fun to watch beyond the female incubating.

Part of what made my golden eagle survey last Saturday so much fun was that it was that we were getting a much need thaw after several days of sub zero temps. The bright sun and 30 degree temps were so warm, I had to roll my window down to cool off. Puddles formed on the sides of the roads made impromptu bird baths for birds, as seen in the above photo of cedar waxwings and a robin.

Many of the waxwings flew down not only for a drink, but also for a quick bathe. This was on a lonely country road, so they were not in any danger of being interrupted by cars, but I did wonder about the water quality. The road would have had salt and sand treatment and that would be mixed in with the melted snow and ice. The flock did not spend too much time at the puddle. When I see waxwings going for the roof top puddle in the fall, the flock will hang out and bathe for at least a half an hour. Here, a few birds would fly down, sip a little, splash a little and then fly into the trees. Another group would follow, but they did not stay. I wonder if they could taste the difference in the water or if it had more to do with chillier temperatures?