Of course a bunch of cool items are coming in as I'm trying to leave town! One being that golden eagle that my buddy Mark Martell tagged a golden eagle that was injured (by one of those AWFUL leg hold traps--can we please ban those, I'm okay with hunting, but leg hold traps suck, both for the intended and unintended victims like birds of prey).
Anyway, the golden eagle recovered at The Raptor Center and fitted with a transmitter to see where it breeds. For awhile there was some concern because he spent quite a bit of time in Wisconsin, but he's on his way now! Check out his travel map:
This bird has been all over the place! You don't see it marked on this map, but in early April he went down into Iowa and the spent a week or two in Wisconsin. Then it went up near Duluth, down back into Iowa, back into Minnesota and then into Canada. Where will this bird end up and where will he breed? I can't wait to find out!
Speaking of banded birds, I got an update on a banded trumpeter swan that I digiscoped during the winter:
David Hoffman of the Iowa DNR sent me an email today that read, "Red 1H8 is a 2004 hatch year Female from Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago). Released at Beaver Valley Wetlands 3 NW of Cedar Falls, IA in 2005."
That was cool to learn!
I'm currently trying to load all of the Birdwatch Radios that I've missed so I can listen to them on the plane (apparently, I'm on one of them) regardless, I really enjoy listening to Steve Moore's interviews.
I also learned that the 100th Edition of I and the Bird is about to happen! It's going to be hosted by The Drinking Bird on the Nature Blog Network blog on May 14, 2009!
Mike Bergin, the founder describes I and the Bird as the blog carnival devoted to wild birds and birding. A biweekly showcase of the best bird writing on the web celebrates the interaction of human and avian.
Write a great post then send the link and a brief summary of the post to Mike (mike AT 10000birds DOT com) or Nate (naswick AT gmail DOT com) by May 12. Then, when Nate publishes his historic edition on May 14, visit and link from your blog. It's that easy, and fun to boot.