Win A Swarovski Scope

Guess what, gang? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm0OE0aSoV8

Once again, I have partnered up with Swarovski Optik North America to give away a spotting scope.  And this time we are producing a short eight episode web series with birding and digiscoping tips with me and my buddy Clay Taylor. Now for the contest part: the birds in each episode are a clue to the overall series theme. If you correctly guess the theme, you will be entered into a drawing for a Swarovski STM spotting scope!

The series will debut this spring, we are still filming some of it. You do not have to be a top notch birder but it helps if you know birds.

Obligatory Snowy Owl Post

Hey! Have you checked out Project Snowstorm or contributed to it? You should donate because your money allows researchers to study an owl irruption in a way we've never been able to before--in real time rather than spending the next two years trying to figure out what happened, why it happened and if the owls survived. I gave $25, can you do the same? How about $10 or more? But if you can't donate, check out what they are learning...like maybe these owls aren't all starving to death and that some are even hunting ducks over open water at night! Amazeballs!

If you live in the eastern half of North America...it's kind of your duty to post about snowy owls this winter. So many people are finding them and so many non and casual birders are seeing them, it's reminding me of the great gray owl irruption of 2004/2005...which means my blog will be 10 years old in September of this year. Wow. How did ten years happen that fast? So many adventures and changes. And I wonder who is the next "Birdchick" that is out there with a fire in her belly with a ton of bird stuff to share. She (or he for that matter) doesn't have to be "Birdchick" but I do wonder who is like I was 10 years ago seeing how people share birding information and thinking, "I could do this in a completely different way (and maybe even a better way)," and will soon get their message out there for the delight or chagrin of the world? For every movement there is an anti movement or as we like to say at Chez Stiteler, "For every Mame is an Auntie Mame." And I'm totally cool with being the Mame in this situation and gladly await the Auntie Mame.

But back to snowy owls! They are all over the frickin' place. They are within a 30 minute drive of my apartment to the northwest and to the southeast. All one really needs to do is either use eBird or the BirdsEye app on their phone to see where people are seeing them.

Based on eBird and Facebook (and the many photos people are posting on that social media site) there is currently a fairly reliable snowy owl on 180th street and Hogan in Dakota County, Minnesota. I headed down after doing some work on Winter Trails Day to test out a new digiscoping adapter on my iPhone 5s (can't talk about the particulars yet). It was far easier finding the owls than I thought, I just drove around to the known spots and pulled over where ever I saw cars on the sides of the farm roads. The above bird has been perching here regularly no matter how close people get to it.  I alas, cannot get close to a snowy because my scope and camera set up have too much zoom! From that particular setting here is what I got with the Nikon V1 and my Swarovski scope:

I could barely get the whole bird in the frame! With the Nikon V1, you get great photos but it really zooms in. I've noticed before that it's field of view is quite narrow.  When a bird is close like this, I find my iPhone 5s works much better for digiscoping.  Here's the same bird in the same spot but with my iPhone:

Better field of view.

Here's another comparison with a different snowy owl that was further out in a corn field:

This was taken through my scope with the iPhone 5s with a bird that was about 100 yards out from the road. I do like getting habitat shots of these snowy owls. It's fun to try and figure out where they are hiding. I'm to the point now that I look for a dirty wedge of snow and that helps me find the females.

Same bird taken at the same distance with the Nikon v1 through my spotting scope.

Oh and if you are interested in attempting to sex the snowy owls in your area, Cornell has a good page explaining it. Based on what they show, the bird on the post with the thinner barring and larger white chin patch is a male and the above bird with the thick barring is female.

Here is a short video I made showing the difference between my iPhone and my Nikon V1 of digiscoping the male snowy owl.  You can see that with either set up, you really don't need to be close to the owl and all up in its business.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-XUhNQlSRg[/youtube]

Birding By Bike In Austria

Think I'll spend a day with cabin fever in frigid cold temperatures remembering adventures I never got around to blogging about in 2013. Generally, work takes me to fun places and in the last year or so, my meetings have involved some unexpected locations.

I had to go to a meeting last summer at  Seewinkel – Lake Neusiedl National Park on the Austrian/Hungary border. This area is known as the burgenland and is made up of mostly vineyards. We stayed at the delightful Hotel Post Illmitz right next to the park. The inn owner Otto was quick to offer food, wine and conversation upon our arrival.  My favorite part of the whole experience were the bikes in the hotel garage that we could take in our off hours and explore the town and park.

Illmitz is a small town, easily bike able (and walkable for that matter) down the quiet streets. The traffic is used to bike riders on the road and there is plenty of space to get through.  It was not a bad place to have a couple of all day meetings.

You can quickly find yourself on the paved trails around the park (the signs are easy to follow even if you cannot read Austrian). The trails take you through bucolic vineyards, wetlands and shallow lakes. Blinds give you high up views to watch for harriers, shorebirds and waterfowl.

Here's a greylag goose digiscoped with my iPhone from the lookout tower. What a treat to see one of these wild and not the barnyard version I'm used to seeing in the US.  Turns out these things really can fly.

We were there in late summer and the shallow lakes were chock full of shorebirds, here's a wood sandpiper. Some of the lakes were dryer than usual, so a scope was handy as the birds were sometimes far out. I brought along my backpack and some bungee cord and still managed to find a way to attach my trusty scope to the bike--though some of my fellow meeting attendees were very kind to take my scope on their bikes from time to time. I didn't take any book field guides with me but downloaded a couple of apps. I ended up relying on the kindness of Europeans on the trip to help me id birds--especially shorebirds. I recently got a copy of the Crossley ID Guide to Britain and Ireland and wished that had arrived before I left. It's an easy to carry guide for an American in Europe for the super common birds.

Stilts never disappoint no matter what continent they are on.  This is a black-winged stilt taken from the tower.

But this park is more an International Park rather than National Park.  If falls right along the Hungary/Austria border. We spent one morning before a meeting looking for Hungarian birds--we used cars for that. I sometimes tell Non Birding Bill that if I ever end up in some sort of vegetative state or if I'm sick in a hospital, plug in slide shows of places I've been and I'll be ok. I think this is one of my favorite offices I've ever had. Our morning was filled with purple herons, eagles and turtle-doves.

While we were taking it all in, flocks of bee-eaters came into the trees. Many of the birds that we saw on the Hungary side we could see on the Austrian side, but hey, how often does one have the chance to do some birding in Hungary?

Here's an up close bee-eater.

Half the fun of the trip was the food. This is one of the reasons why I bike so much in warm weather and run 5ks in the winter--the 20 something metabolism just ain't what it used to be and in order to keep eating in the manner in which I have become accustomed, I need to exercise (boo). I am an adventurous eater and when I was trying to decide dinner one night, one of the items translated for me on the menu was something called "pike perch." A British companion insisted I try it, that is was a very tasty fish.  It was...but also familiar.  A quick Google search revealed that pike perch is also in the Percidae family making it a walleye--which is Minnesota's state fish. And a tasty fish it is indeed!

Many of the places we ate served local wines (from their own vineyards), homemade schnapps, their own cured meats and homemade cheeses. We even got to eat some of the "National Park Cow." I'm not sure if you can see the condiment tray in the back of the photo, but there was one item on there that was life changing.

This. I spread it on some bread and felt the soft gooey very unvegetarian flavor take over my mouth. "What is this," I asked our Austrian server.

"Um...this is...how you say...fat. Pig fat. Um, yes...lard spread?"

Imagine the consistency of butter but with all the best flavors of pork--that was this.  I enjoyed it so much that our host ordered three more dishes of it--perhaps fearful no one else would have a chance to taste it after I fell in love with it. No worries, this was so rich that a little truly goes a long way. I immediately sent a photo to Non Birding Bill informing him that I was never returning from Austria again.

I fit one more bike ride in the following morning before I had to catch my flight in Vienna. I had to work off some of that "lard spread." The burganland was truly beautiful but because all of the surrounding vineyards had ripening fruit...it had the full attention of the native European starlings who were hell bent on eating the ripening grapes and the growers were trying any method to get rid of them which included speakers blasting wildly barking dogs, injured starling calls and screeching goshawks. There were also periodic air cannons and single engine planes diving at flocks (and coming down well below tree level) and shooting fire crackers. It was vaguely like being in a war zone...not totally relaxing.  I'm not sure how well it worked to keep the starlings away but the pilots of the planes sure looked like they were having fun.

The birds sure seemed used to it. This is one of the many red-backed shrikes I encountered while biking around.

A blue tit lurking in the shrubs on my bike ride.

A great tit was mixed in with the blue tits.

And this was a distant photo I took of spoonbills for my digiscoping big year only to download them later to notice that one of the preening birds was a stork!

One of the more colorful warblers in Europe--a reed warbler.

And a super cute little ringed plover.

Illmitz is definitely worth putting on your travel itinerary if you find yourself heading towards the eastern end of Austria. Maybe avoid late August and early September if you want to avoid the ambient noise of bird scaring techniques.

We stayed at the Hotel Post Illmitz and they have a variety of bikes for a variety of body heights.

A Cleansing 2014 Post & Thank You.

Someone suggested that I needed to do a cleansing bird post...

Breathe in the turkey vulture, breath out. Breathe it in once more, savor it aaaaaaand exhale.  And I remember all the reasons I love birds.

In all the craziness of the last week of 2013 I forgot that it was quite the year and mostly I have you to thank for it. My third book came out and went into a second printing--which is awesome because there's a photo mistake in it (BLERG) and we got to fix it. So all those first editions are now collector's items--W00t!  Thank you to everyone who bought a copy of the book!

OK, not everyone wants to breathe in a turkey vulture so let's have a cleansing yellow-headed blackbird. Feel free to breathe this dude in.

One of my favorite parts of the year was being able to give away my old spotting scope and you guys cracked me up with your terrible photo entries for my Bad Photo Scope Give Away Contest. That was the best, I can't thank all of you enough for having the courage to share those craptastic pictures. My Inbox has never been so much fun before. Speaking of which, there will be another contest later this year...it's going to take a few months to build this one and I still need to hammer out a couple of the details, but it should drop in spring, it will be fun and I think have a level playing field.

The boreal owl is no longer my nemesis bird thanks to bird guide Erik Bruhnke. And thanks to all of you who either helped promote or contributed to my Digiscoping Big Half Year, Sax Zim Bog now has a visitor center! Thank you to everyone who gave what they could either on my behalf or one of the other birders in the contest.

And speaking of my Big Half Year that turned into my Digiscoping Big Year...I have discovered that I'm a TERRIBLE lister, I don't enjoy it. I think the album currently has 226 birds in it but looking at my last few downloads, I think I got past 250 but I should have gotten more. I mean, I had a long-tailed duck in walking distance from my apartment and I didn't chase it. Part of the reason was work and then when the opportunity came up to go for the duck, I had a well spent afternoon with a non birding friend instead. I think I will continue to keep Flickr Albums of birds I digiscope in a year just out of curiosity to see what all I can take but getting the longest list is not the way that I enjoy birds.  NOT that there's anything wrong with listing.

Birds and Beers is still going strong and I love hearing from all the people who have them going on their states--I love that the spirit of the idea of birders getting together and being social happens all over. I hope to hear about more in others states...and countries! Thank you to everyone out there brave enough to be the host of one of these gatherings.

Non Birding Bill's previews of his game show You're Making That Up went well.  He's still hashing it out, but thank you to everyone who came to them as he and Neil figure out what's next. This has also been a tremendous year that so many  friends had great things happen: comedians getting writing gigs, authors getting awards, musicians getting contracts, listers breaking records--seeing my friends be successful after they've worked so hard makes me feel great.

And well, even though Disapproving Rabbits is closing down doesn't mean we can't still have a cleansing bunny over here from time to time. I'm incredibly grateful for this dude. It's not every rabbit that will snooze on your laptop keyboard and I'm grateful to spend time with him.

Thank you all very, very much.

Owls: Birding's Troublesome Ambassador

  Here's a little video I made about watching owls.  This is a compilation of some of the owls I've digiscoped over the years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e5g99gYjlg

It's one of those sorts of winters again: a northern owl species is heading into parts of the US in big numbers.

This time it's snowy owls mostly along the east coast. Look at the above map from eBird. There have been some crazy reports, including 138 individual snowy owls found on Newfoundland and note the dot in the middle of the Atlantic there? That's because at least 2 snowy owls have made it to Bermuda...that's bananas!!

If you are not on social media you have missed anyone you know on the east coast reporting a siting or photo. Or you may have missed the outrage of birders all over the place angry about people getting to close to the owls. Or you have missed the many lamentations of birders to everyone to back off from owls, give them their space and if you ever find an owl in the wild, just don't post it. Above is a picture of a snowy owl taken at a Wisconsin airport last winter. That lump on the left hand side of the roof is the owl.

Here it is through the scope (someone had banded and placed a patagial tag on this). Owls are a tricky issue in birding. They're cool, we all want to see one, even non birders--they make a great intro into the fun and wonderful (tho sometimes vexing) world of birding. I love the number of times I've taken non birding friends to an airport and showed them a quick snowy--it's a great way to show people that cool birds can be anywhere.  It's a charismatic looking bird, it has so much potential in a teachable moment. But owls need their space and we don't often give it to them. I almost wonder if owls have some sort of hypnotic power so that even when someone has the best photo they can get, they have to know just how close they can get to this strange and mysterious creature and that compels them to get closer.

I think most of the time it's just people who are new to birding, have access to birding locations and equipment like never before and simply do not know or realize that they are getting too close or are away of birding ethics.

What do you do with the owl conundrum when you see someone getting too close? Do you confront them? Do you secretly video them for public shaming on YouTube?

I think it's best to confront them at the time but do it in a way that assumes they know absolutely nothing about birds and in a calm way.

Instead of shouting, "HEY, JACKASS, GET THE F*** AWAY FROM THAT OWL BEFORE YOU KILL IT!"

Perhaps, start with, "Isn't this owl amazing, you may not realize it, but getting this close to it is a problem for the bird and for others who want to see it."

I know some people are immediately not going to respond well.  No one likes to be told by stranger that they are doing something wrong. But If you can find a way to explain how they are one of hundreds of people a day seeing that owl, interfering with its ability to hunt and ability to survive, they might take that to heart.

Trying the approach of, "If we back off a little bit, we might get to see some really cool natural behaviors and interactions with other animals.  We might get to see it hunt or we might get to see and film something like this:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/80860484[/vimeo]

I don't think it's going to be solved any time soon, but we need to get info out to people that they don't have to get that close to owls to enjoy them.

Rehydrating A Baby Snapping Turtle

 

We have had a bit of a dry season here in Minnesota. Some would even say we are in a moderate drought. On one of my bike rides in September, I noticed some freshly hatched snapping turtles on the Cedar Lake Trail--most of them were in various states of flatness from bikers running over them.  I paused to examine one of the smashed one and noticed one in the yellowing grass that hadn't crossed the paved trail yet.  I nudged it with my shoe and it barely moved. I picked it up and it was very dry, I wondered if it was dehydrated and wouldn't make it to the safety of water. Cedar Lake was closer, but all the smashed turtles seemed to be heading towards another nearby lake called Lake of the Isles. I placed the nearly immobile snapper in one of my many travel cups in my bike satchel and poured in a little water. With in ten seconds the turtle perked right up. I didn't put a lot of water in, just enough to stand in and keep its head above water.

Not sure what to do I took the tiny snapper home, made a make shift pond in a giant pasta bowl, filled it with some small pieces of turkey and a few pieces of earthworm.  It took bites of both. I placed some lettuce leaves in from my farm share and the turtle seemed content to hide under that. When I moved, the snapper would dart under the lettuce. If I stayed still while typing, it would slowly creep out and extend its neck just enough so its tiny nostrils were above water.

Non Birding Bill came home and saw it on the kitchen table and said, "We're not keeping it...right?"

"No," I said, "just wanted to give it a bite or two before I send it off to Lake of the Isles."

I posted some pictures on my various social medias and a friend who doesn't know animals very well but loves all things cute sent a message, "Tiny turtle! Wait, turkey? They're not vegetarian?"

I then had the fun task of informing them that snapping turtles are omnivores and those baby ducks they find so cute...snapping eat those too. Something so tiny and cute will grow up to be a monster in dark murky water. But that's ok, ducks have their own dark sides when they grow up--every animal has a dark side.

After a night at Chez Stiteler, I took the tiny snapper to Lake of the Isles.  I found a nice shallow spot with lots of vegetation for it to hide in and some good insect larvae potential. The turtle was anxious to get away from me and start life. I stuck around a few minutes to watch how it would acclimate to such new and large surroundings. It wanted as far away from me as possible.  Understood, big things mostly mean to eat you, tiny turtle.  Here's some advice: don't trust a heron.

The last photo. Tiny turtle surveys the big world of Lake of the Isles.

Furlough Family Visit

I took some of my own advice on being furloughed and headed out of Minnesota to visit with my family in Indiana. I joined my mom and some of my sisters for time at one of the family cabins in Brown County State Park. Above I am lip synching to the Trolololo song at one of the scenic overlooks...which none of them knew.

 It was actually a good plan, I could do some writing and put out freelance feelers out while they would do things I don't care for like going shopping in nearby Nashville. The deck of the family cabins have a beautiful view and lots of birds for inspiration.

The birds are so used to guests putting out food for them that all you have to do is scatter some seeds and birds like the above tufted titmouse had no problem flying in to join my office. At one point I had a both a titmouse and a white-breasted nuthatch taking nuts from my hands. It was a bit nostalgic for me to be here. When I developed an interest in birds as a kid, this is where my mom used to take me as a kid as it was only an hour away from where we lived Indianapolis. She and my aunts would book a few days in the off season. It was intended as a sisters' getaway for them but since I spent most of my time outside, it wasn't too much of an imposition to bring me.

It was so nostalgic that the few birds I digiscoped I did using Instagram like the above eastern towhee. I know I tend to rail against that social media platform for showing pictures as old and faded but since this was a sort of childhood revisit, it only seems appropriate.

The pileated woodpecker was the bird that got me interested in birding--I saw it in a Peterson Field Guide when I was 7 and thought how cool it is to know that there is such a thing as a crow sized woodpecker. Brown County State Park is where I first heard and saw one. It was a few years after I had been watching birds, but that was a bird really wanted to see and I'll never forget that pair that flew low in front of my aunt's van and landed low on a tree (just like the book suggested, they tended to forage low on the ground). But we had a family group hanging out regularly outside our cabin and they didn't mind us at all.

No matter where we went around the park I remembered first birds or birding lessons learned. I learned the call of the red-bellied woodpecker by following one "kerring" relentlessly outside of Abe Martin Lodge. When stopped by Strahl Lake in the above photo, I remembered the time I took laboring over the id of a Louisiana waterthrush working the edges of the creek that trickles from the dammed up lake. My mom even stopped me at one point and said, "Hey, Sharon, do you remember the time you were here and you found that Louisiana waterthrush?" I know my mom is aware of my interest in birds and she was there learning right along with me as a kid but I didn't think she remembered all of them and I was impressed that she remembered that particular bird. Perhaps because I stayed there so long staring down a brown bird and worked to try and separate it out from a northern waterthrush?

I know full well that hardcore birding is not something I'm going to do with my sisters. But usually they bring binoculars. Alas, mom left her's in the cabin when we went out and my sister Terri left her's at home. This was a spot that had a tree chock full of warblers and there was no easy way to get my scope on one so I passed around my Swarovskis (perhaps it was their intent all along--to use my binoculars). My sister Angela (in yellow) seemed to content to to simply wonder what the heck it is we are looking at.

I loves me some wild edibles and mom was excited to find some paw paws still left in the park. If you have never read Julie Zickefoose and her love and harvesting of paw paws, you should really check it out. My mom got a little too excited about finding paw paws (I should never have shown her twerkers gone wild in Walmart). But we all got a chance to taste the delicious Indiana Banana.  My sisters were not as enthused by the texture as I was. But the big excitement for me was noticing people gathering some fruit under trees near the camp store. I went to investigate and low and behold the trees were laden with persimmons and I chowed down!

I picked up as many as I could and ate them with every meal at the cabin.  They have the texture of plum with large seeds inside. The flesh is like a very mild orange flavored with cinnamon. There are different types of persimmons. Sometimes in stores you will find the larger, flatter Asian style for sale and when I was in Israel we had one of their varieties with every meal--it was not lost on me that in Israel they are called Sharon Fruit, but then again my name is Hebrew for a great and fertile plain.

But these persimmons are the North American species (Diospyros virginiana), the ones I remembered tasting as a kid.  They were fantastic.  I couldn't get enough of them. On our way out of the park we stopped again so I could load up a container and take them back to Minnesota. I wanted to try them out on Non Birding Bill.

He enjoyed the flavor as well and the next morning I chopped them up and combined them with pancake batter and a couple of dashes of cinnamon. I dare say they were the best pancakes I have ever made. Make sure when you try a persimmon or if someone is offering you one that it is a bit soft.  Hard unripe persimmons are a cruel joke in your mouth, they will suck the moisture out of it and they are very bitter. But ripe ones falling off the trees are fantastic.

I also found quite a bit of sulphur shelf aka chicken of the woods growing in the park. I suspect my freakout over all the wild edibles had my family concerned for my well being during the furlough. I ended up coming back to Minnesota with far more food than I took (I"m responsible for supplying honey and cheese on trips with my sister since I have easy access to things like Sartori Espresso Cheese, brun-uusto and a new morel jack that I found). But my sister Monica sent me home with two sacks of veggies from their garden (including green tomatoes--my all time favorite), Terri sent me home with 2 jars of jam made from her cherry and other berry trees in her yard and even my Aunt Lynne had cookies and fudge at the ready for me to eat on my way back to Minnesota.  I'll take it.

Speaking of the furlough, I was having a conversation with my sister Terri about house sparrows. There were a few birds mating in the rafters of Abe Martin Lodge in Brown County State Park and we chatted about bird breeding habits. A woman walking by overheard us and asked about them. I started describing them to her and noticed she gave the look of, "Wow, yeah, I was just asking a question and hoping for a one sentence answer and not an encyclopedia answer."

I know that look well and know when to stop talking, "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm a furloughed National Park Ranger and I'm having a bit of interpretation withdrawal." We laughed, everyone said how sorry they were about the situation and then went about our day.

That's really all you can do with this stupid situation, laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

That and make sure some of those laughs are from having time well spent with family.

How To Survive A Furlough

Wow. I wrote this for the last shutdown in 2013. At the time I was only a part-time federal employee. Now I am a full-time federal employee. One thing that has changed from over four years ago is that I'm way more prepared for a shutdown this time. I still have some freelance projects but I also have an emergency fund just for this inevitability. I'm more than a bit nervous that this furlough is going to last as long or longer than the last one. I'm even more worried that I will get no back pay for this--basically being put out of work by people who will still get paid during a shutdown. I'm lucky in comparison with fellow federal employees I know who have massive student loans, mortgages, expensive medial bills for themselves or their children, are in the middle of a major roof or furnace repair or just living paycheck to paycheck. 

So, if you are new to a furlough, here's what a wrote last time and I hope you find it useful as you spin your wheels trying to fill your day without spending money. Here's hoping that by me posting this today it will mean the shutdown is over before the day is done. 

Immature rose-breasted grosbeak.

Sometimes, I just need a cleansing look at a bird.  That is what gets me through the day. I love this immature male rose-breasted grosbeak.  Barely a few months old and he eats at the feeder on his way to a marathon flight into Central America.  Good luck, dude.

With the federal government shutdown, many employees are out of work with an uncertain financial future.  For those who do not know, I work part-time as a National Park Ranger. The rest of my work is made up of various freelance projects--articles, speaking engagements, the occasional book, consulting, bird surveys, etc. My part-time position in the park and my freelance means that I will not qualify for unemployment during this time and a chunk of money that I count on is not there.  If the government decides to give out back pay to employees for the shutdown, anyone who used unemployment will have to pay it back. However, there is no guarantee and it looks unlikely that any furloughed employees will get back pay when this is all said and done.

Being without work with no clear sign of when money comes in is scary. As a freelancer, I know. What I find funny for me is that as much as I love and enjoy the park service, I saw it as a cushion for when my freelance times were lean and now it's as uncertain as the rest of my career. Ah, life!

Freelance definitely is a feast or famine sort of lifestyle. I always describe it as, "Freelance is great because you can set your own schedule, unfortunately so can the people who send you your checks."

I've developed some strategies in my seven years as a freelancer and perhaps some of these might be helpful to you if you are furloughed at this time. These are also guidelines for anyone who ever emails me to ask, "How can I do what you do?"

Down Time = Idea Time

What is something you have always wanted to try? What is some crazy career scheme, idea that you always wanted to do but "real work" always got in the way? Maybe it's watercolors? Maybe it's self publishing dinosaur erotica? Maybe it's learning how to cook Thai food? Maybe it's writing a Barry Manilow biography? Maybe it's creating your own YouTube Channel and producing easy 2 minute how to accounting videos? Start working on it. Now. You have the time, you may never have this chunk of time to flesh out the idea and it could lead to something. Or not. But the point is, you are working on something. You are improving your skills.

Screen Shot 2013-10-05 at 7.14.00 AM

Beekeeping was started with a friend during some down-time in my career.

Speaking of improving skills, is there some program you don't know how to use well and you've been faking it or relying on spouses, friends, interns to do them for you? Is an Excel spreadsheet baffling to you? Find free online tutorials, they are out there. Give yourself a new marketable skill.

All of the above activities can be done without any additional expense. You can find classes for watercolors and cooking online. You can set up a self publishing account on Lulu.com or a YouTube channel for free. You can film a whole movie with your average smartphone. Where there's the Internet, there's a way. And if you don't have access to the Internet, there's always the Library and books.

Stay Active

This was a hard one for me to learn but made a huge difference. Especially in lean times, you think you need to always be working, always find the next project, do something useful for your household. It's easy to fall into a pattern of zero activity and that does not help your mood. Get out of your house. Walk, bike, run, skip, just get out and get physical. You don't have to join a gym, but you may need good shoes for the type of activity though. Also for some of the work that I do like bird surveys, it's important that I maintain a certain level of fitness. Even if you are a writer, programmer, designer you need a level of fitness too.

I don't like joining a gym, I feel guilty about the expense. And I like the sort of exercise that is outdoors.  I have a bike and I use that for going to meetings as well as exercise. I love my bike riding time because it clears my head and I use to flesh out articles or come up with strategies.  I'm essentially doing the things to get work that I would do on the futon at home with my laptop, but doing it while burning some calories.

I don't like to bike ride at night and living in Minnesota, the night last 16 hours in winter. So I took up running in winter. Let me be clear, I hated running. Hated it. But many of my friends and family have taken up running and they claim to enjoy it, so I started a couch to 5k (there are several out there, even my husband took it up after I did, but he used a zombie game to do it). On days when you have no work, running gives you a sense of accomplishment. You got up, you got out of your home, you challenged yourself.

Birdchick

Couch to 5ks are a great way for someone who has been mostly couch surfing to get up to running.  And you will never be as bad as your first day doing that program.  When I started it, I couldn't run for 60 seconds. The first time I ran for 3 minutes straight and the timer on my app told me I could walk but I felt like I could run a little longer had me squealing for joy and jumping in the street.

So find an affordable activity plan--yoga exercises online. Even if it's just walking at a brisk pace outside in the rain. This is still contributing to your family. Maintaining your health so you are around longer to be there for your family is the best gift you can give. The Oatmeal sums it up best.

Find Free Fun Stuff

Find out what your town offers for free. We have the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The general exhibits are free.  You can go and sit in front of a Picasso...for free. During the furlough, some places like Huge Theater are offering free shows. Google around, get out, breathe. Get inspiration.

Don't Avoid Your Friends

ALL OF US HAVE HAD LEAN TIMES. All of us have been unemployed, have been in tough financial straights. If your friends offer to go out, don't avoid them. Be honest about not having money. They will either say, "Hey, I can spring at least one beer," or "Well, come to my house for some Battlestar Galactica board game fun" (it's an awesome game even if you haven't seen the show). You have most likely been there for friends, paid tabs, bought dinners, been the designated river, etc-- let them return the favor. And someday, you will be able to pay tabs again. Let your friends help you if they offer. They feel bad for you too, they want to help, let them do what they can.

I have wonderful friends, Joan of Dark and Dill Hero even offered me work in their coffee shop Strange Brew while on furlough. That's amazing to even offer considering all I know about coffee is how to drink it.

Get Comfortable Having Some Debt

You may have to use your credit cards. This can be frightening because of the interest rates or maybe you got yourself in a terrible debt situation in college with credit cards. These are not replacement paychecks, these are there for you to have some cash flow when you really need it. It's important to keep your debt limit in mind (see below). This is not for a night out drinking with friends to celebrate hump day, this is for when you have about $6000 worth of checks that are supposed to come in any day and you need to put gas in your car or buy some macaroni and cheese for dinner.

Pay it off as soon as the checks come in. Don't just schedule massages, buy five pairs of shoes or that expensive fleece you've been eyeing. Pay it off ASAP.

And when you have debt, you are more than just your debt. It can be a stressor and a motivational tool but it does not define you as a person.

Specific to freelancers (not necessarily the furloughed):

Set A Debt Limit

If you want to freelance full time, the first thing is to set a debt limit. How much are you willing to bear if you are going through a lean time? How much are you comfortable putting on your family? If you have a family, make sure your spouse/partner is ok with that amount. Stick to that, once you reach that debt point and there's no sustainable job coming in for a month, it's time to find a new job. What is that amount? $1000? $5000? $10,000? I don't know, that is up to you, your resources and whoever else has a stake in your household income.

I hope some of this helps.  I hope all of us get back to work soon.  I hope someone out there forms a "Reasonable Party" where politicians share ideas and concerns rather than shout hyperbole and focus more on political posturing in front of the cameras than an actual solution.

Update for 2018

If  you are like me and you are absolutely terrible as setting aside money for rainy days, two apps that have really helped me prepare are Stash and Acorns. They're not advertisers for my site, but you get a sign up bonus and I get a referral bonus if you use the links I provided. If you'd rather just go to their page rather than using my links, that's cool too. If you have your savings account strategy set, you don't need these. But if you're like me and prone to buying rounds for friends, drunk Amazon ordering or seeing an extra $50 in your account as permission to buy more yarn or fancy scotch rather than setting it aside...these will work great for you, they did for me.

You can set Acorns to automatically deduct money from your accounts or set it up round up to the nearest dollar when you make any purchase and it will set that money aside. I forget about the account and then I open it every couple of months and see either a safety net or some fun money I can use for travel down the road. Stash is similar but you can create a portfolio where you can choose to invest your money for better interest rates. I'm a big fan of the Roll With Buffet option. If anyone out there has been using similar apps and like them better, I'm definitely willing to listen. 

My to do list for each day of the shutdown is:

Tidy
Rage Knit
Birding
Be Physically Active
Write
Art Project
Avoid News Commentary (they don't get your job, or you as a person) 

Amsterdam Birding

I know what some of you are thinking after reading that subject line, "Wait...there's something other than the Rembrandt House, Van Gogh Museum and Red Light District that people like to do in Amsterdam?  Really?" Yes! Really! After all of the non birding in Paris, I took the train up to Amsterdam to visit my nephew who lives there.

I'm actually closer in age to my nephew than his mother (there's a ten to eighteen year difference in age between me and my siblings). He's an amazingly cool individual who among many things designs iPhone apps (one app that worked with wallpaper ended up being an exhibit at the Louvre) and has such fun hobbies as playing the theremin.  As I settled in to his apartment, he casually shifted into a speech I'm sure he's given to any family for friends from the states about visiting his town, "Now, I know when everyone gets here that they want to go to the coffee shops and I just want to warn you..."

I cut him off right away. "That particular activity really doesn't do anything for me and that is not on my agenda."

"Good," he said, "because (family member name not revealed in the blog) went and threw up all over the place and (friend not revealed in the blog) had a bad trip."

"But the Red Light District is, I want to see the ladies in the windows," I said. He agreed to take me, though I suspect reluctantly.

And for the record--I don't judge people who toke up, I actually think it should be legalized in the US. But, it literally is wasted on me,   doesn't work on me at all (and yes I've tried more than once). Whiskey works well and smells better to me so that's what I stick with.  As a matter of fact, one of the really special parts of my trip was that my nephew too me to WhiskeyCafe L&B.

A small dark bar filled with nothing but scotch whiskey--that's one of the wall in the bar in the above photo...every wall was like that. As a thank you for for his hospitality, I ordered my nephew and I scotches for our respective ages. It was a lovely moment and I felt so happy sharing the success of my last year writing with his success of owning his own company in Amsterdam. We both grew up in Indianapolis and our lives have taken us to strange and far flung places neither of us could have ever imagined when we were kids.

I told my nephew not to worry about me during the day, as long as I had a key and knew where the public transportation was, I could keep myself entertained and we could meet up for dinner and hang out with this friend in the evening. Ever the tech guy, he made me a super useful map for my phone:

He's not really a birder, but his mom indulges in the habit and he's been around me, so he has a good idea of what we are looking for. And between the rail, bike rental and walkability I was out and about on my own without any problems whatsoever. And unlike Paris, I felt just fine walking around along with my 65mm spotting scope and camera. I even got turned around a bit and stopped into a Turkish coffee shop for directions and they good naturedly made fun of me for losing my way when I should be able to see everything with my scope. And they were happy to offer me suggestions of birds they knew of in the area.

I had a fabulous morning of birding just in the Oosterpark down the block from my nephew's apartment and managed to get quite a few birds for my digiscoping big year.Grey herons were all over the place.

As were rose-ringed parakeets, an Indian species that is a popular pet bird but has feral colonies established in Europe, especially Amsterdam. This cavity nesting species occurs naturally in the foothills of the Himalayas, so they can take a bit of winter.

Here's a great cormorant that was drying off. I think I ended up adding 14 species to my Digiscoping Big Year challenge while in Amsterdam.

Magpies were all over the place too. I had thought originally that getting a magpie in Europe would mean I wouldn't have to worry about getting black-billed magpie in northern Minnesota, but those scamps over at the American Ornithologists' Union decided that black-billed magpie is not a conspecific of the Eurasian magpie (at one time both had the Latin name pica pica). Eurasian magpie is still pica pica while the black-gilled magpie in the US is pica hudsonia because the AOU thinks its mitochondrial DNA sequence is closer to yellow-billed magpie rather than Eurasian magpie. Sheesh.  I really do not like listing. But at least I have a magpie on my Digiscoping Big Year.

I think one of my favorite European species is the blackbird, what a lovely singer. It looks like a melanistic robin and has the haunting tones of a hermit thrush. What a great bird to serenade you all over the city.

I never had to worry about an alarm clock while I was in Amsterdam...my nephew's dog Weezer worked great. Even if he didn't make any noise. I would just have this vague notion that was being watched and would open my eyes to this:

Weezer giving me the stare down.  I think Weezer normally gets the guest bedroom and so waits patiently until said guest wakes up and then...

Commandeers the bed and blankets for himself. I thought Weezer and actually had a great time together.  Amsterdam was the last leg of this particular European trip and at this point I had emails or articles to deal with. He'd snuggle up behind me in a chair while I would type away.  I felt like we had developed some sort of bond, but while taking a selfie to send to Non Birding Bill...

I discovered that Weezer did not trust me as much as I thought--perhaps the best dog photobomb I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

I had the Van Gogh Museum on my list while visiting Amsterdam. I decided to forgo being super cheesy by wearing my Exploding TARDIS t-shirt to the museum. But I did look for the Vase with Sunflowers and didn't find "For Amy" on it. The museum was more interesting than I thought.  I love Van Gogh, I wasn't sure if I was up for a museum that was nothing but, however this museum covered his history and who he worked with and included fun things like a portrait of Van Gogh by Toulouse-Lautrec or the same painting Van Gogh made, but done by other contemporaries like Gaugain at the same time. I didn't expect to see Starry Night because I came across it while it was on loan to Metropolitan Museum of Art just a few months earlier. I was there for the Edvard Munch exhibit and when I turned around to leave, there it was, nonchalantly hung in a hallway.

But I did get to see one of my favorites: Crows Over A Wheat Field--the color use is spectacular and it reminds me a bit of seeing crows in autumn right before a storm rolls in like I would see on my bird surveys. And I took this for no other reason than to capture the woman next to me taking a photo of it.  I am baffled by all the people who go through museums and only look at the art through their phones and their iPads as they collect photos of it rather than actually enjoy being in its presence. I wonder if people think the same thing about me when I'm bird watching? But I almost always get the bird in the scope before I hold up the phone and if it's a really great bird, I take the time to enjoy it rather than just get photos.

There's no way my phone can capture all the detail and texture of this piece, so I just capture it by purchasing mug in the museum gift shop. But it was a treat to get to see this particular bird painting on my travel.

In the evenings, I would join my nephew for dinner and had such traditional dishes like white asparagus with wild boar...a rather phallic looking dinner now that I take a good look at my photo. Eesh. This particular dinner was partly a birthday party for him and several of his colleagues arrived. Fortunately for me, everyone in Amsterdam speaks in English so it was easy to chat. Periodically my nephew would pop by, "Are you ok, are you having a good time?"

"No worries," I said, "these are all programmers, it's like being a sci fi convention, talking Game of Thrones is universal."

Amsterdam was  a lovely city and after you have your fill of the art, cultures and debauchery there are fun birds to be had in the park and along the many canals. We had dinner in one of the large houses that line the streets. For some reason, I had the impression that all those tall houses were lined up side by side with more houses behind them. If you ever have the chance to go in one and look out back, you will discover that all those buildings are fencing in block-wide parks that all the surrounding buildings share and they are chock full of birds.

You can see it a bit better if you look at the satellite images of Amsterdam on Google Maps--all those trees and green space and trees hidden behind tall buildings.

Great-spotted woodpecker digiscoped in Amsterdam taking advantage of the many trees.

Two side notes about visiting the Red Light District in Amsterdam and seeing the ladies in the windows:

1. The types of ladies in the windows are very different depending on the time of day. My nephew took me at night and they looked like, well what you might see on the cover of Maxim or on Cinemax or some such. My nephew said during they day...they were...well not quite the same. Of course I had to go back and see for myself and let's just say that there is lid for every pot and the ladies in the windows during the day did not look that different than what I might see working East Lake Street in Minneapolis--a little rough to say the least.

2. I found it incredibly amusing to watch how the ladies in the windows responded to my nephew as opposed to me. I even slowed my pace so he was about five steps ahead of me (he wanted to get through there quickly, I'm sure taking your aunt through the Red Light District is one of the weirder things you can do). When he walked past the windows, they were all smiles and wiggling various parts of their bodies. When I walked by, the smiles vanished, they turned around and started texting and there was no wiggling of any body parts. They clearly know their target market.

Midwest Birding Symposium Bound & Harrier

  Quick note, for those interested, the next Birds and Beers has been set for September 30 at the Black Forest.

As I catch up and sort photos from my latest European trip, I'm packing for my next trip to the Midwest Birding Symposium. I'm looking forward to catching up with friends and I'll also be presenting a workshop on digiscoping with a smartphone at 3:15pm on Friday. I'll be on hand with some adapters for people to try out if you want to give it a shot. You can also ask me about regular digiscoping as well.

Speaking of digiscoping, I'm sorting through photos from my recent trip to Sweden and I can't believe this photo worked out. It's a marsh harrier (the upper bird) and a common buzzard. They were kind of taking shots at each other in the same thermal. It got this with  my Nikon V1 and Swarovski scope.

When I'm away from the Americas, I see marsh harriers everywhere I go. Their wings are a bit fatter than the North American northern harriers ( or hen harriers as they call them over in Europe). The buzzards are a lot like the North American red-tailed hawk...only minus the red-tail.  But they can have color morphs like our red-tails can.

As those two birds were circling higher and higher, something got the harrier's attention and it dove towards the ground. Boy, that would make for kind of cool tattoo.

As the harrier lowered the landing gear, I thought I might get to see it catch prey, but at this point it was seriously putting on the breaks and slowly lowered itself closer to Earth before flying off in a different direction entirely, perhaps to look for another thermal to carry it up to the sky again. It was a cool moment to watch and makes for a great souvenir from my trip to Sweden.